Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #10 - Sill Strengthener Installation and "The Door"

Getting a bit behind in my updates. Here's the most recent video that I haven't talked about on the blog (though it's been up on YouTube for a while) that deals with the inner strengthener and my initial finding that the driver's side door is going to be a problem.

As I mention in the video, I had cut a hole in the lower inner B post for the wiring harness to transit to the boot for the brakes lights and such. I ended up drilling a bunch of small holes in a circle and then just snipping the remaining metal with some wire cutters. I smoothed the hole out with a grinding stone on my Dremel.

I see you!

I used a small piece of fish tank air tubing, split it, and ran it around the hole. I used some 3M Weatherstrip Adhesive to tack the two ends together. Not the most glamours of solutions, but I think it will prevent the wires from chaffing, which is what's important.

Yup, just air tubing. Not very exciting.

Wrapped around hole and glued.

With that done, I could then move on to putting in the sill strengthener. I did my normal routine of punching plug weld holes in in, placing it, and welding it in. I was pretty happy with the result.

Installed and ground down. Not too shabby.

Down the strengthener, looking back. Some more work to be done!

And, now that the sill strengthener was in, I could go back to those last few plug welds on the B post side of the inner sill. I waited on these, if you remember, to prevent welding a seam shut that I didn't want to while fitting the sill strengthener.

Done. That one large gap between welds (top seam) will be filled when I repair a small part of the B post.

With that, it was time to move on to the outer sill. There were several fits, moves and some metal cutting, but all in all, it seemed to line up pretty well considering the original part. Everything will require final adjustment prior to welding in, but nothing that seemed to tell me that anything was way off.

Rear gap. That won't work, but I was able to notch the front a bit and move it back far enough to work.

Where the A post to outer sill transition piece will go.

The original transition piece fit back in. Adjustment required.

Unfortunately, my original repair to the bottom of the upper bulkhead had to come out to accommodate the new outer sill. I guessed on how it was put together since I destroyed that area taking the old outer sill off.

Interference with my original repair. Oh, well. I was proud of that thing, too!

After that, I took all of the internals out of the driver's side door to take the weight off and mounted it to the body. The gaps were, and continue to be, horrible. I'm still trying to figure out why this is. My worst thought is that I put the lower A post in wrong and it shifted the mounting points for the door. More to follow on that.

Wow, that's looks good. Happy about that gap.

Not so much about that one, though. Door would not close properly like that.

Gap gets worse as I move towards the back of the car.

I think that's good for capturing the video in write-up. The door is a big deal, still. Frustration abounds with getting the proper fitment and, as of today, 8/4/17, I haven't fixed it. More to come!