Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #32 - Outer Sill Preparation
So close, and yet...
I still had quite a bit of preparation work to do before the outer sill was ready to go in - more than I thought. The first thing was to get it fit and take measurements between my marks that I made before everything came apart.
This resulted in cutting off just about an 1/2" from the rear of the sill. In doing so, I lost the slightly rolled edge that is back there, but I'm going to try to reproduce it.
A small cut.
Also, the edges where the sill curves up to the door area were not that "sharp", especially towards the back, so I took care of that by putting the sill in the vise and making some adjustments. I did the same for the angle where the sill welds to the upper portion of the A post. This helped with fitting it up to the strengthener/inner sill.
The rear of the outer sill before...
and after.
That done, I needed to close the gap towards the front where the sill steps out from the A post. This seems like a manufacturing limitation, but it was easily remedied with several small tack welds.
The gap as the piece came.
Clamped down, ready to weld. Guess I didn't take a post-welding pic.
Then it was on to fitting the sill along with the sill front cap. Since mine had suffered so much rust damage, I wasn't exactly sure how it went together, but there weren't too many options, so I figured it out pretty quick. I also needed to shave the front of the new lower A post piece so the cap would fit properly.
Trying to show where the lower A post fits "inside" the inside bottom of the front cap.
iew from the front on how the cap goes in there.
I also needed to shave back some of the new floor. Need to fix that gap, too.
Again, this was a lot of remove and refit and adjust and all that. I used sheetmetal screws to hold the front cap to the sill for ease of assembly.
View from inside the sill looking towards the cap. You can just make out the black front "tab" of the lower A post.
All of that took most of my visit. There is still some areas that require minor patching before I weld it all in, but it should be relatively straight forward.
This will need more attention.
Unfortunately, that was the last work that I got done; over a week ago. My Honda Fit broke the driver's side CV axle last Saturday. As I write this, I'm waiting for a new one coming via FedEx so I can get it replaced. I've never done one of those before, but it doesn't look too bad.
Once that's all sorted, I'll hopefully be back to my normal routine with Dorothy. Cheers!
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