Not “On the woodway”, am I?

By now even native english speaker should have heard this word-for-word translation for the german saying “Auf dem Holzweg sein”. And if you have read one of my d a previous entries who know that I still need to fix the wooden frame. After I took the frame from the chassis a couple of month back it was easy to see that the door rocker was gone completely. So door sill board had a rotten edge. Approx 5 cm of the lower part of the catch post were also gone.

After taking the frame apart I believe I would not have needed a new hinge post – but the driver door will be used much more often and therefore replacing the part is most likely a good idea. What I did not see right away is that the rear wheel arch had a 3 by 5cm rotten corner. I also not bothered too much about a missing piece in the front scuttle top rail that I assume my father cut out to install a radio 😦

Equipped with the replacement parts I brought back from the UK – it is time to put the frame back together. However this task cannot be completed without repairing the spots mentioned above. Anyone that will take a closer look at the pictures will realize that I am not a carpenter – I have just learned some minimal basic woodworking skills over the last couple years. Now was the time to apply these to get the frame back together.

Using my Ryoba saw I just away the damages corner from the wheel arch. I tried to keep this as small as possible but had to do this twice to get the angles right. I then used a small oversized piece of intact wood from the old sill board. Once I was happy with the fitment I clamped it to the arch to drill holes through the repair piece into the arch. With plenty of TiteBond glue I drove in dowels to secure the repair piece.

After the glue dried I again used by Ryoba saw to cut away the overhanging material. A bit of wood paste was applied to fill some smaller gaps – I would say “jobs a gooden”. Once it is sanded and painted it will be hardly noticable. Maybe not a job of an expert – but I am satisfied with the result.

I also did quite a bit of sanding today on the rear panel. Hopefully this gets painted until next week. It needs to be attached to the frame before fitting back the rear wheel arch sill and rear bottom rail.