I'm about to don the welding gloves once again and remove all the holes in
the rear of my body tub on Ye Rustye TR4.
I will be doing some minor engineering changes while I'm at it, most
notably the replacement of the double-walled (2 layers) of 20ga steel
along the rear fender mounts with 1 layer of plate (street sign,
actually... don't tell anyone). Should stop moisture from getting between
the layers and rusting the fender mounts from the inside.
So my question is: originally the wheel wells are fastened on by lapping a
flange over the rear inner fender and spot welding. I don't have a spot
welder, and I don't think I'll be getting one soon. Anyone with a
sheet-metal-metallurgy background (or experience) care to comment on what
I should do? Should I use tack welds instead of spot welds? Lap the new
metal and use lots of sealer? Or (my preference at the moment) should I
remove all overlapping metal and do a butt weld?
My idea is to get rid of anywhere that moisture could lurk and kill my car
from the inside. And simplify my task of welding the whole thing back
together (it's pretty bad too, I can stick my fingers thru many different
spots; been a bad repair or three in there before me :-( :-( )
Any advice, or words of support, would be greatly appreciated.
Hope I can get some film for the camera to show you guys the sort of
Impossible Things I like to do...
-Malcolm
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http://www.islandnet.com/~walker05/triumph/trfaq.htm
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