Wing mirror brace bar repaired and lower seal channel repair welded in.
Made a start on the O/S cab door this week. It’s in slightly better condition than the other side, apart from the bottom which is in a terrible state:
Schofields repair cut down and clamped in while I repair the brace bars:
Both bars repaired:
And made a start on the repair for the wing mirror bar:
After many, many, many hours I’ve finished the welding on the bottom of the inner frame for the N/S cab door.
I had this final gap to fill where the frame curves round to join the door skin:
Quite a fiddly bit to make, I ended up doing it in a few bits, but the end result looks fine and the skin fits well around it:
Then finally a thorough cleanup with Strip & Clean discs and wire wheels, and a coat of zinc primer. Much better!
I’ve not ground the welds down on the inside as it’ll be hidden when the skin is on, but i’ll put some seam sealer on them before I fit the skins. The outside will need a skim of filler along the bottom when I get round to the shaping stage.
Not bad considering it looked like this before:
Now to start the other side!
Lower corner done now. Nearly there with this door (sick of the sight of it tbh!)
Folded up another repair for the bottom of the door tonight. Cleaned up and etched the wing mirror brace bar.
More door repairs this morning and out for lunch at the old thatch. Just the bottom corner left to do which will be fun.
Style line finished.
Carrying on with repairing the N/S cab door over the last few days.
I needed to rebuild the style line that the door card sits inside as the PO had made it out of filler.
This is the gap I needed to fill.
And here is the first repair all welded in and dressed. Much better.
I’ll get this bit welded in tomorrow to close it all up.
Once I’ve done that I just need to carry out some repairs to the bottom of the frame and the welding on the N/S door frame is done. The bottom on this side isn’t too bad (the other side is going to need a lot more work though).
One corner repaired. Now for a BBQ as I’m a exhausted!
A good test of my fabrication skills and a chance to use my new sheet metal machine recreating the corner section of the cab doors.
I made it in two parts. The section that forms the seal channel starts life as a sheet of steel:
After a bit of folding the piece turns into this:
Trimmed down and a curve cut into it for the second repair panel to attach to I then tacked it to the door (I trial fitted the door skin to make sure the repair fits correctly):
The second repair is formed by rolling a sheet of metal into a curve with a slight lip on it to follow the style lines of the door:
And then trimming it down to fit:
I’ve painted the inside of the repairs and will get it all welded in tomorrow. It’s a lot of work to get this to fit right but hopefully worth it (I screwed up my first attempt as it wasn’t a right angle, and then my second attempt was the wrong way round but I can at least use that on the other door).
