Second Cut

The Second Cut

Cutting out the inner sill proved to be more difficult than I would have thought. Armed with the knowledge that you should drill the welds, I progressed slowly but surely. I obviously only got a bit of the native metalworking skills of my father, either that or his knowledge is hard won.

Problem area

This area is one of the worst on the car. The attachment to the wheel well is pretty well rotted out and was "fixed" by shoving a handful of bondo in the rusty cavity. I thought it would be in a bit better shape here but oh well, you push on. I may have to back this area with new metal, probably from scrap metal from the numerous repairs my friend does at his shop. He does great work and I would definitely recommend him for all collision repair work.

Inner Sill Placement

After looking at the inner sill and contemplated the situation, I realized that I had the inner sill was flipped. It fit quite a bit better with it correctly oriented. The fit was perfect.

Fender repair placed

With the metal cut away, leaving enough to be able to draw them together, the replacement panel simply clicked in place. It will still need some drawing in on the bottom to meet up with the bottom weld line, but a really nice fit.

Overview

In weighing my options of learning how to weld vs paying one of my friends workers to help, I believe I will defer to a professional. His worker needs side work and wants to work on the car. I need to get the welding done so prepping for paint can begin. I plan to let him prep the missing metal, and weld the lot into place. Once that is done, depending on my time availability, I will decide if he can remove the driver side, or I do it myself. It took me about 8 hours of work to remove and clean up one side. So I estimate that having him handle the fabing and welding will save me at least 2 weeks (16 hours of my work time).