Finally had some time to work on the car.

I left the car for sometime with the heater channel removed so before I went I added a scissor jack under the door, to stop the opening from spreading. I also spent some time removing the black primer from the new heater channel. With a couple of coats of weld through primer finished off the preparations.

Now with some time on my hands I was able to get the channel into position. I decided to buy the inner front repair panel due to not having anything to make a pattern from due to the extent of the rust.

Drilling out the spot welds the panel was easy to cut out and the seam on the A post was prised open to release the final part. Cutting out the panel to the marked line gave me plenty of room to adjust the position of the new channel.

Looking at the bulkhead I need to carry out extensive repairs to the double thickness  area so I will remove the inner part at a later date.

Tack welding the heater channel, I was able to get it into the correct position.

Once into postion I started to close up the front.

And grinding as I go.

Due to the movement in the car the panel didn’t fully fit so I had to make a filler plate to improve the fit. Once finished I protected the bare metal with oil.

I ran out of gas for my welder so had to stop.

Next will be time to finished the heater channel fit and A post repair.