C-Post Part 1

I won't be able to do any work in the garage for a week or so after today, so I popped into the garage this afternoon to have a go at the nearside rear C-post (or rear quarter panel). As stated previously, this bit of rot took me by surprise as I hadn't spotted it before. However, when playing with the angle grinder the extent of the rust soon became clear.

The first job was to cut out the rusty area, leaving just good metal. I used a combination of tin snips and a thin cutting disc in the grinder for this, plus drilled out the factory spot-welds with a zip-cutter. Once out, the metal was ground back to bright steel and then sprayed with zinc-rich weld-through primer.

Next, I made a repair panel from some scrap steel I had laying around the garage. It took a bit of fiddling to get it to fit, especially as I wanted to butt-weld it. Holes were punched along the bottom edge, ready for plug-welding to the top of the rear wing. Again, it was finished with weld-through primer.

Once the paint had dried (about 20 minutes later) the repair panel was tack welded in place, before being stitched in. It was important to move around the panel between each tack weld, working on opposite lengths to keep the heat build-up to a minimum.

The welds came out really well, with good penetration on the rear side. I decided not to plug-weld the bottom row of holes for now, as they would have to be taken out again should the rear wing need to be replaced later.

Finally, the welds were ground flush(ish) and the whole area sprayed in weld-through primer.