The Napolean's Hat- Repairs

From the last pictures you can see that the "Napolean's hat" panel needed some work. It was badly corroded at both ends and also along the joining point with the floor pans and framehead closing panel. Rather than replace the whole thing with a not particularly great pattern part, I decided to use only the parts of the pattern panel absolutely necessary. These bits would be cut out and welded to the original panel where needed, so leaving as much of the original as possible.


Here you can see the major rusted area, roughly cut out on the left side. Sat on top of the chassis spine is the part of the repair panel that will be used. It's worth noting that the repair panel is for a LHD car so has holes pressed out in places the original RHD part does not. In particular there is one hole that you can see in this picture. I'm not sure what to do with the hole at the moment, either weld it up or leave it and close it off using a grommet. I've left it pending a decision later on. In this picture you can also see the replacement framehead fitted and welded on, together with the remnants of the closing panel. As I mentioned before this was cut so that I removed the worst of the corrosion but was able to leave the original pressings and brake hose brackets intact.

Picture showing the front edge of the left side cut to the final point. Strangely the front edge, which is more exposed to the elements, was in better condition that the other side, so needed less original metal removing. Again you can also see the framehead closing panel.

Once the original panel was trimmed back to the marked lines, the repair panel was trimmed bit by bit until a good fit and alignmant was achieved. To make sure the alignment was spot on I temporarily laid the replacement floor pan panel, the replacement heater channel and the replacement front bulkhead panel in place. Here you can see the repair panel finally in place from the rear and prior cleaning up and welding.

And here from the front.

Next step was to weld it on after again ensuring alignment was spot on.