[TA_C10]

Update - Inner roof panel


Made a little progress today before super bowl. Started tacking in the inner roof panel. After using the eastwood fast etch I cleaned it up more and sprayed a couple coats of eastwood rust converter as well. Hope that stuff works. Sure seems to be a tough and durable coating over the weld thru primer I had been using. I got tired of that stuff it just rubbed off too easy for my taste.






Took a ton of magnets to hold this panel in but I decided to start by tacking in the top part of the panel first and then tuck it in and work the spot welds after. This was the best way I found to make it fit best and get it butted to the existing part of the panel straight and seamless. It worked good for me.







Started in the middle. I really liked the new panel and its rear-view mirror molding in the header so I used that to replace the original. The new piece was stronger and nice new holes pre-drilled. Let's just hope those holes match the rear view I buy My original appeared to be drilled a couple different times in different places so this was nice to replace.







So then I started working my way out on each side and down the panel towards the doors. I chose spots that were smallest gaps so it was easy to get a good starting tack weld without blow thru. I didn't exactly spend enough time grinding this panel very straight so your gonna see imperfections...








Like this area, I will have to cut a sliver to add to that gaping gap..








Then I started noticing that the relief cuts I made to form the panel properly actually made the underside of the panel accessible with a pick so I could pull or push the panel flush as I went along. I also realized that as I worked my way down the panel it worked to my advantage to tack the corners in quickly which helped the rest of the panel line up perfectly by holding it in from the start of the relief cuts.

Using all these magnets created enough force sometimes when needed to hold a stubborn panel flush so I could tack it.









Here it is pretty much tacked in and I started to work the spot welds. I started doing the spot welds from the ends first. I didn't think it mattered too much where I started here as the panel pretty much is clamped in and its not going to move so... We will see when I finish it up.








Here it is after the first set of tacks across the top. You can see all my corners of the relief cuts are tacked like I was saying earlier. It made it real easy to line up since I didn't have any access from the back side. I had to make sure it was lined up BEFORE I welded any further on each piece.

From LEFT to RIGHT:



















This is where I stopped for the day on this panel.





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