Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #27 - More A Post

The mirror of this post can be found on my website, Roundtail Restoration, by following this link.

Not that great of a night at the garage. Had to undo some work already done, and then figured out that I probably might not have had to after all. Oh well. The video:

I started out trying to fabricate the bottom portion of the A post that would fit near the bottom door hinge attachment and finish off the bottom of the depression, the top of which I repaired in my last post.

Here's where the new piece will go.

Cutting out the portion of the hole for the door hinge wasn't that tough, though I didn't do a great job, but the depression was a bit difficult. I used the old piece as a template and ended up clamping the metal in the vise, then banging it outwards to create the depression. Meh.

In vise in attempt to form depression.

I got that piece tacked in (no pics again, sorry). Before I put it in fully, however, I wanted to check the fit of the new lower A post. I fought with this for a while and never did get it sorted. I speak about it in detail in the video, but suffice it to say that there is are differences in the new piece and the old. I expect this, of course, but it is going to take more trial and error fitting until I'm willing to call it good.

One of the problems that I had, and may still have, is that the flange I made on my newly fabricated upper A post sections dropped down too low, I think. This pushed the whole lower A post down, causing the bottom to line up well below the bottom of the floor. So much so that I didn't have a flat weld area if I wanted to weld the two together. Not good.

So, I made the decision to cut out all of my hard work and focus on getting the lower A post fitted as I don't believe there is an order that matters. Again, I talk about it and show better images in the video.

One thing I did get to, however, was welding down the bonnet plate. I finished up the welding on the repair patch, ground it smooth, primed it all, and welded it in.

Ready for primer. You can see the bottom section hasn't been removed yet.

Welded in. Not as pretty as the factory, but I did plug two plug welds in addition to the edge lap welds.

That was it. Next visit I will tackle the bottom A post and see how it goes.