| Time to do the driver's side rear seat pan. Here's a reminder of what I started with. |
| Started by cutting the rusted part away and making it vaguely straight. This is the first patch, although you probably knew that from looking. |
| Measured the hole and made this patch. Used my anvil as a buck for the rounded lip. Instead of the typical 20ga patch, I used some 16ga steel I had laying around. This stuff welds great, but is really thick.. it killed my Harbor Freight air-shears today. I had to use the cutoff wheel to finish cutting the patch. |
| Initial fitting. Much like the other patches I've done recently, I get it close, tack it down, then cut the old metal away from around it so I can make it flush. Unlike most of the other patches, the frame is in the way and I had to use the cut-off wheel instead of the sabresaw. You can see that I had to trim back the rounded edge so it'd fit better against the wheelwell. |
| Here I've welded more around the edges. This pic was taken just before I started with the cutoff wheel across the back (top of pic). I left the front unwelded since I'll be putting another patch in there. |
| And here it is, welded on three sides. |
| This is the template I made to help me make the patch for the major curved area. The dimensions listed are to remind me to make it a little bigger in these areas. Unfortunately, I used too small of a bit of cardboard so it didn't cover as far to the left as it should. |
| I got too into putting it in and didn't take any pics of the new panel before I started welding it in. Here I've already tacked and cut and tacked a few rounds.. the whole front is flush (but not fully welded) as is the right (outer) edge. |
| Got back into it, forgot to take any more pics until I got it welded in completely. |
| You can see at the top of the pic that I made the patch too short. The rest is pretty well welded (except for one spot next to the brace I need to fill). |
| Alternate view. The curves came out pretty good, to my mind. |
| I do still have some small rust holes to take care of though (circled) but they really should be easy, especially after the big patch. |