Had Saturday free to tinker so I thought I'd do one of the jobs that has been disturbing me for a while, the off side door.  

It is easy to see that as the door rises it falls back away from the front wing leaving a dreadful gap. 

I had planned to weld a section of aluminium to the door to make up the gap as shown above but when I called Bell Classics in the week to ask if they wanted to do the job for me (I don't have aluminium welding facilities) they were a little reticent.  They advised that the new piece would have to be a sheet that has been folding to match the edge of the rest of the door and that the welding was likely to cause a few issues with heat warping.  I had quiet a long chat with Andy and he casually asked if I had enough metal to unpick the edge, fold it flat and then bend it back again in the new position.  I look back now and wonder why that hadn't occurred to me.  

I got home that day and checked and realised that I probably did have with the exception of one bit that had been cut away to fit over a rib in the door frame.  I got to thinking about dealing with the small section of the door skin that had been removed and how I might cover that up when I remembered that I had some Lumiweld left over from my kit car building days.  I had, in my mind fallen out with Lumiweld as I had previously struggled to work with it successfully so I decided to google it to see if there was any fresh advise on how to use it.  I eventually came across a post that I made ten years ago  on a kit car forum saying how good it was which really surprised me as I had it down as a little Mickey Mouse in my mind, I guess that I once felt differently about it.  Anyway, I watched a few youtube videos and decided that I should practice with it.  Having returned my Oxy-Acetylene to BOC (the rent was killing me) and not yet got round to getting some rent free bottles I was reduced to using the butane gas canister I have for lighting the fire (don't ask, bad down draft in the chimney in the cold weather on our wood burner).  With the benefit of hindsight I realise that this is a much better source of heat because it is gentle and somewhat broader.  Anyway, a few reasonable practice solders (or whatever one might call using Lumiweld) I got on with the main job.

The folded section of the door skin was very easy to unfold, a result.  I hammered it flat then started working out where the skin should be bent back from.  A few trail fits and a bit of hammering and all was good.  I had split the aluminium in a few places which I think may be from ageing in the metal?  So I got out the butane gas canister and started heating.  It took ages, like fifteen minutes to get the door hot enough to solder/weld with this stuff but when it did flow it flowed well.  I filled the various sections that need it and then waited for it to cool down.

Once done I ground it down and mounted it on the car.  It might look like there is room for improvement but, on the car, it looks loads better as the wing is only roughly fitted so the gap will end up being parallel.

Very happy am I.

The new wing gap

So I have the shroud sorted, apart from the grille aperture, and the off side door.  Both front wings are close but I suspect that they will need some cutting and messing with to get the lines acceptable.  The near side door needs some of the treatment that the off side has had this weekend and the rear wing, near side sill and B post are roughly done.  It almost feels like I am making progress!  I am going to make the off side front wing correct next and then switch sides to other front wing/door so that starting at the front and working back the car gets done.