Roundtail Restoration: Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #26

This blog post is mirrored at my website Roundtail Restoration. You can link directly to this post here.

This Sunday (9/24) was probably one of the better days I've had at the garage in a while. Though I had to eventually undo some of it, I left in a good mood, so there was that! To the video:

My goal was to get the A post sorted. Lots of work here to repair significant cancer damage. I approached it in sections, the very front being the easiest. The middle, where the bonnet comes down was a bit trickier, though I had a hammer and dolly repair that I was going to attempt. The area under this, however, was rusted beyond repair and would require fabrication, a tricky thing.

I was also concerned for the area under the bonnet plate (I think that's the name) as there was significant pitting in the metal, leading me to believe that it had rotted through.

With that, I got to work. I cut out the front of the upper A post...

The front area of the upper A post requiring repair.

After the cut job. No problem.

I continued that cut back, doing it in two pieces to prevent inadvertent damage to the interior vertical supports. I drilled through the one spot weld that was in the area so I could pry the B post away from the supports, minimizing the chance of cutting into them with the cutting wheel.

The rear cut out done. Again, no issues. The area in the center top of picture gets cut out, too.

I then cut the welds for the bonnet plate and bent that up and out of the way to expose the corroded metal.

The right choice to look under there!

Yup, definitely the right choice!

After that, I cut away the area with the depressions. I argued with myself for a bit on whether to attempt a hammer and dolly repair with it still in there, but I couldn't get either in there. I knew that I would not be very successful at fabricated a new piece, so I said "what the hell" and cut it out to try the hammer and dolly repair on the bench.

The cut of the area to be worked.

I took a hammer and dolly to that and I was very happy with the result!

Like I knew what I was doing!

I turned that right back around and got it lined up for welding it back in. I shot the area with weld-through primer, got the edges cleaned up and got it back in.

Not too bad.

With that, I ground the welds down and admired my handy work.

Bad lighting, but you get the idea. The bottom repair is not as nice as the top.

With that done, and since I had the Hobart still warm, I decided to jump back to the bottom of the B post and get that piece welded in properly.

Not done-done, but good enough for fitting other pieces for now.

I jumped back to the A post to get the front bottom part formed and fitted. This is a simple piece with the flange on it, so fabrication wasn't an issue. I made a piece that went from where the bulkhead and A post meet back to the middle of the forward-most vertical support.

Since I was concerned with fitting for the outer sill, I used magnets to set the piece up and rough fit the outer sill to check how the flanges fit together.

Repair piece and outer sill mated up.

The view from below. Pretty good!

I tacked the piece in at that point but for some reason I didn't take any pictures. Anyway, next up was the metal under the bonnet plate. Again, I argued with myself on how to do this, but I decided to just cut the damage out and weld a new piece in. Again, fabrication was simple.