After a few days leaping in and out of the engine bay I decided to undertake a job that I could entirely do from outside the car, so driverside A Pillar it was.
Here it is, looks OK from the front, but underneath its horrible.
So drilled out the spot welds round the window frame and off the top panel comes - there was nothing holding it on at the back anyway.
As you can see the inner part of the A post doesn't look too healthy either - and it has a few holes right through it too, so I removed this and at last good metal.
So I made a repair section and fitted that, seam welded down the door edge and spot welded to the windscreen frame flange.
There now remained the lower part to attend to as there were a couple of small holes visible, so I removed the corner, and got back to good metal - although the top looks a little scabby, the metal is good and thick, I suspect the marks are mainly where rusty water has dried out on it.
I made a repair panel for this, flanges, compound curve correct - perfect and then dropped it as I was about to weld it in place. Not only did I drop it, it fell inside the A post, and I think all the way to the bottom, there's no recovering it, short of cutting an unneccessary hole in the A post. Whats worse is, this will rattle on every bump, so I must remember to inject a nice load of waxoil down this pillar after completion to prevent the rattle. So that's why it was time to stop, I just couldn't face making a new part again today.
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