Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #17 - More Outer Sill Preparation

And another! It's a record!

So after a frustrating false start that I mention in the video, I was back over to the garage on Sunday, a bit refreshed and ready for a new battle. With the exception of some minor battery box and seam sealer stuff at the end, my time was devoted to fitting the outer sill, which ultimately still escaped me.

As I mentioned in the front of the video, I needed to replace my repair to the front of the bulkhead and then to the opposite end to clean up the bottom of the B post. To start, I filled in the little bit of the B post that was missing. Minor, but a gaping hole just would not do, of course!

Weld center of picture. Not much to look at, I know.

Another angle. Not horrible...and it will be mostly hidden, thankfully!

Then it was on to the more difficult repair of the front bottom of the bulkhead. Since I didn't have an original piece here and the passenger's side was "covered" by the installed outer sill, I didn't really know what this looked like. Therefore, I had to wing it and cross my fingers for a good fit.

Initial fit up. Not bad. Some tweaks and good to go!

Repair tacked in. Blurry to make it look better!

Once that repair was complete, I could see how the outer sill would fit. Turns out, it wasn't that bad, but not where I want the final product.

Outer sill...still to wide of a gap there...

...which corresponds to the too little of a gap here. Seems like I didn't make any real difference with the A post change 😡

With that, I decided to forge ahead and finish welding in the repair piece and continue to play with the outer sill fitment.

Outer sill with repair. A bit tight of a fit, though that's not easy to see here.

Repair all done and ground smooth. Some minor holes to be filled.

The other complication, which I hadn't considered up until this point, was the cap that goes on the front of the sill. This isn't an obvious fit. I'm still not sure how the factory did it, even after looking at the original passenger's side. I figured it was best to screw it into the outer sill and then fit it in and see how it looked.

Front cap screwed in. Who knows!?

Ultimately, I think this is the correct way to approach it, but I wasn't ready to do any welding on it. Some of my repairs to the A post needed to be trimmed and there were other areas that needed attention that I wasn't ready to commit to, so I left it as it was. Close, by no cigar yet.

I moved to cleaning up the supports for the battery box and getting them straightened and painted with primer.

Supports as clean as I wanted to get them.

Bottoms showing large holes that will be a pain to fill. This was done with my spot weld cutter.

All cleaned up and primed with weld-through.

Finally, I went back and hit the holes and gaps in the A post adjustment with either welding or seam sealer. The larger holes were welded because it just didn't feel right to fill them with seam sealer...like filling a dent with Bondo. I did my due diligence on holes, then went over everything with seam sealer. Hopefully I won't need to undo this all over again!

All pretty and sealed. Is this the end of it???