Pigeon_Droppings
Member
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- 123
Cheers mate...here is a pic of the repair underneath the cutout panel in the previous picture. Words can't describe how much of a pain in the butt this was to butt weld...I didn't want a lap joint as I was worried this would be directly behind the rear wheel. The welding here isn't great...penetration wasn't really a problem...stopping the penetration was the real issue. In the end the only way to get this working was to use a copper plate behind the weld...again invaluable info from others on this forum so thanks guys. I'm going to clean up the welds further but had to leave things for now (was getting the usual ear ache about hiding in the garage). I've got two jobs left before closing the repair up. The first is welding the inner arch return to the outer repair panel as I had to cut off the original due to rust - should be OK as it's a flat piece and I cut along the outer edge bend...they seem to rust in the bend where toyota have helpfully placed some kind of water retaining sealer...just a thin bead but enough to cause a problem. The second repair is the inner arch...I'm open to suggestions on this but my initial thought is to have a go at some shrinking to get the curve...I don't have a shrinker but was thinking about doing it the old fashioned way with a hammer ...anyone tried this for the first time ....did it work OK. The strange bit in the bottom right of the pic will be the bottom of the inner arch...I figured I'd get this lined up with the outer panel so I can get a nice plug welded arch inner flange just like the original. I'll be forming the top part and welding to the bottom part to complete the repair. The key is that it all needs to align...I had practice on the sill repair as I had to reconstruct the inner arch there too so fingers crossed the same approach will work here