Early December I discovered that the back of the car was quite rusty when I started repairing the panel below the rear fender. After un-doing some repairs done by previous owners I found more and more rust underneath and not much of it’s original shape and panel.
To stay motivated I also worked on other things in parallel like better repair the inner front wing, sandblasting the suspension parts and partially coating them and repaired the right front floor panel. Time for an update on the backside.
Progress repair back side
First I enlarged the hole to find some solid steel and remove the rust.
I also prepared a small repair panel that still needs to be trimmed a little more.
Furthermore I temporarily removed the car from the spit to be able to test fit the lower trunk lid.
I also checked the fitment of the panel that is being screwed underneath the trunk.
I removed some old repairs and created a clean area for a new panel.
This allows me to weld the new panel directly to the original panel and spot weld it to the beam. I bought a piece of panel at a local workshop that has the right dimensions already.
Using this panel I could do some test fits.
And pre-check the alignment.
I continued by creating a small panel for the side and affixed it do have some fixed areas.
I need to add the bulge to attach the panel underneath the trunk lid. Using the Volvo Amazon estate from my father I could determine that it needs to be 6mm in height.
This will further stabilize the panel that needs to be mounted but now at least I have some overall height anchors.
To be continued…
