Hard to believe it has taken me three days to fit the replacement floor boards in the boot, however it was a fiddle trying to get a good fit of the new boards with the old. They are in and screwed to the frame but due to a slight cross sectional warp in the rearmost board I will need to add some reinforcement from underneath to pull the inner edge of the board down level with the rest of the floor.
Once that has been done, the next big job is the frame rail under the rear window.
Today I was able to install the pillar repair section I made yesterday. Screwed and glued to both the existing remnant of upright and to the boot floor cross bearer and given a coat of primer.
Whilst that was drying I installed the two new gusset plates for the previous pillar repair and bolted them up to the cross bearer and upright.
Finally I made a couple of brackets to reinforce the joint between today’s new section of pillar and the existing part. These will also connect to the horizontal that joins the vertical at this point.
I now need to make up the gussets for this new piece before I can fix the new perimeter rail section at the bottom of the pillars.
Today has been the first really warm day of the year and I was able by lunchtime to complete removal of the rotten steel gusset flich plates around the boot OS side pillars, ground the remains of the bolts flush with the bearers and, where they could not be removed, with the pillars.
Next I sanded the bearers and the underside of the boot floor ready for painting with aluminium paint, which I completed before the end of the day, then I applied a coat of red oxide to the steel curved corner pieces.
Final job of the day was to apply a coat of grey topcoat to the corner section so it will be ready for fitting when I have made and fitted new steel gusset flitch plates to the first OS pillar.