1974 Dolomite Sprint

[SiC]

Looks cool. Those doors arches look a bit complex to make though. Probably cheaper and more accurate panels than what I had to pay for though!

[SiC]

Tonight I had a spare two hours and the Inner arch is (almost) one piece now. Just a tiny square to finish off at the bottom. Paint running as it's 11c in my garage with the heater running on full. 6c when I started.


This is the slice I made the other day to allow me to shape the inner arch once I've got it in place and lined up nicely on the outside.

[SiC]

I welded the left hand square tonight in the inner arch at the bottom. A bit slapped on but it does the job. Priority is to get this car done, so didn't spend ages fettling into shape and position this time. It's strong and won't be visible under stone chip underseal.


Painted the rest of the inner arch.


Next job is to line up the outer arch panel and sill. Then grind back the edges to provide something to weld along.


I'm going to take my time on this as, unlike everything else so far, this will be directly visible bodywork. So plenty of air to cool down the tack welds as I go. It will still need filler as I'm not planning to remove all the old stuff, as trying not to go overboard. Plus more paint I remove, more expensive a professional paintjob would be.

[DodgeRover]

Beware that modern red lead, it doesn't always take kindly to solvent paints going over the top of it until it's had a good long while to cure, I've had a colour and undersealed peel of it because I was rushing it.

Will you be butt welding or are you going to joggle a flange on it to go behind then weld?

[SiC]

Beware that modern red lead, it doesn't always take kindly to solvent paints going over the top of it until it's had a good long while to cure, I've had a colour and undersealed peel of it because I was rushing it.

Not sure it'll get body colour under there. Probably go crazy with black underseal type paint.

Will you be butt welding or are you going to joggle a flange on it to go behind then weld?

Probably going to get a raft of people on the internet telling me I'm doing it wrong, but I've already joggled the edge and plan to weld against that. On the inside of where it'll be exposed, I'll go crazy with the seam sealer and wax to stop it rusting through.

A joggled edge gives me a lot more room to play with to line stuff up. If I have to move back in a bit, I still have material to weld up against. A very thin skim of filler along the bit that had to come in slightly will hide the ridge. It's going to need a decent chunk of filler to bring up inline with the old stuff.

I've had this clogging up my garage long enough and I need to get the project going again. If I butt weld this pieces, I'm going to be measuring, marking, measuring, marking till next winter..

[DodgeRover]

That sounds like a plan to me, if you can get to the back side and also slap some paint on before the seam sealer that should be better than factory

[SiC]

Today I spent a good 4 hours moving, clamping, trimming and re-clamping till I got things lined up as best as it would go. I'm fighting against factory inaccuracies and repro repair panel inaccuracies.






Also put a slit into the sill so I could bend it out in the middle. From what I've read, the factory sill has a curve in the middle but the Dolomite club sill doesn't. A screwdriver works well enough as a cam to push it out and line it up to the door.


Then tacked the outer repair arch panel on. Hadn't quite got the settings dialed in correctly at first, so some may need grinding off and redoing. I used a lot of compressed air to try to stop too much heat getting into the panel.

[SiC]

I've (badly) plug welded up the outer arch to the inner. Will need more work to clean this up as I've managed to blow holes on the edge where the inner didn't quite meet with the outer. I may even try seam welding it, but it'll be a grim job with the drum in the way.


Lined up and clamped the sill in place.

I've done a smaller lip deliberately at the bottom, so I can seam weld all the way along here and not make it too noticeable. Hoping it'll be stronger than plug welding along and tbh I'm not that great at plug welds either.



Smashed the top of the lip into place. You can see the screwdriver and cuts I made so there can be a bend in the middle.


Removed the rear door.


Then tacked it all into place. The front I think is a bit set too far in, so may have to slice that weld and pull it out slightly.
I may quickly rehang the doors to check alignment and if all good, seam weld the lot up.



Also need to fix this front of the sill back up. I lined it up on the back of the sill in the rear arch, but the front is a tad short. Most of this should be hidden under the lower wing anyway and I have a repair panel for that.


The next problem is the b-pillar door mounting plates have stripped threads. They must have been like this for years and some of the bolts were barely grabbing when I first removed them last year.

This is a tricky one as I can't easily cut them loose, nor I'm not sure where I even can get replacements. Seems options are helicoil, retap then hope or drill out larger and tap for a bigger bolt.

[paulplom]

Are you able to cut an access panel so you can remove the plate? It looks like it's loose and dropped anyway. If you could get it out a fab shop could knock some new ones up fairly cheaply or it would make it easier to repair the existing ones on a bench.

[DodgeRover]

Can you tap them to the next closest size be it metric or Imperial?