Scuttle panel

Good enough or not even close? This questions goes through my mind now after trying to fit the scuttle panel back on repaired frame. Back five months ago I replaced the sillboard, door rocker, hinge and catch post on the left/near-side of the frame. As documented in a few blog posts I test fitted the scuttle panel a couple times along the way to check that I didn’t make a mistake. Even back in December while I was still waiting for parts I stored the panel on the car and it both sides fitted easily.

So I was quite frustrated this weekend that this did not work out right away. And much to my surprise it is the right/off-side of the car that causes trouble. The better part of the evening went into trying get the fitment right. I started off with checking that the middle aligns correctly. There is an indent in the wood for the rear bonnet hinge and it is important that this location is correct. As there was a crack in panel this part was welded a while ago. Next I made sure that both sides end up correctly on the upper part of the hinge post. There is a small hole where a rubber stop used to be and I used that as reference.

But no matter how I tried to get it one – the lower corner one the right/off-side just doesn’t go around the wood. It is one maybe two millimeters to short. With the help of some loosly attached clamps the part of the scuttle beneath the door does fit. I asked Stefan (the owner of the body and paint shop) to take a look at it tomorrow – maybe he has an idea what I could do better.

In order to get a feeling of accomplishment I then went on to fix up the rear wiring harness. Autosparks used a grey PVC warp for this part and I didn’t like this. So I added another layer of black tape and attached the loom back to the car. The rear number plate panel is made out of metal, needs a bit of welding and straighting. As I need to order some more parts, I am now tempted to replace it with an aluminium one…

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