Mostly pictures this time, some examples of small rust-through mends.
First up, the forward, driver's side corner of the trunk. Water leaks either through the soft top or under the hard top, down into the trunk and puddles at the corners. In short, rust-throughs.
 |
Witness the rust-through from rear driver's side fender well
|
 |
| First - cut out the cancer |
 |
| Next - size a new chunk of tissue |
 |
| Next - tack-weld it in place. (I trimmed the donor tissue to fit before welding.) |
 |
| Finish - several things: completed welding, ground the welds and shot on some self-etch primer |
The last pic doesn't show it, but the weld shows some. I may smooth it out with some JB Weld or I may not worry about it because it will rarely be seen under the car. (I'll probably smooth it out because it will bug me that my mending will show to the discriminating eye.) Also, you'll notice in the last pic that I found another rust-through. It was a rust bubble that I started picking at with the spike of my body hammer. It will get a patch too. Mend one, find one more - it's the way...
 |
| The tumor after removal |
Next up, a really manky piece of trunk floor inside the bodgy butt-cheek.
The first pic shows the tumor after removal. It's too rusty to weld, and I'm not putting anything this nasty back in Alphie.
Not shown in the pics: I made a paper template from the tumor and approximately fitted it to its spot. I cut out a piece of 20 gauge sheet metal and fitted it more precisely to the spot. "Fitted" implies hundreds clamps into place followed by scrutinze along with trips to the vise for filing, grinding, welding, hammering, more grinding and filing, more fiddling! It's not a quick fix!
 |
| Adding the welding flanges to the fitted 20-gauge sheet metal |
 |
| Flanges are boxed in with a small piece to close up a gap in the frame rail |
 |
| Tacked in place to check fitment |
The pics don't show how much time it took to fit the piece to the space and get the pitch of what will be the pinch weld around the boot pan and into the rear wing pinch weld.
 |
| Glued! |
The welds are a bit messy right now, and you will notice some burn-through where the fender well meets the new piece, and some gaps where I'll need to replace some more rusty trunk floor pan. I will cover the ugly welds with either JB Weld or seam sealer, eventually. I know, it's under the car, but still...
The rear-wing patch panel is not welded in yet as I have some more fiddling to fit it perfectly. I'll show you how I fitted the patch panel soon.
Before and After
It occurred to me that a good way to show how much Alphie has healed is to show a before and after shot of the photo used as the masthead to this blog page:
 |
| Before (2019) - when I first dug into the rust! |
 |
| After (2021) - the same spot, post tissue grafts! |
Two More Before and Afters
 |
| Before (2019) - on the day of rust reveal |
 |
| After (2021) - same spot after lots-o-mending |
