More Welding Fun

I'm stalled for a bit waiting on repair panels, so I decided to take a swing at repairing some of the damage in the trunk.

First up: the big hole where the spare tire carrier goes.  I had to cut out quite a bit to find good metal.

This wasn't a difficult repair.  I made a patch panel and welded it in.

I got good penetration through the panel and it's solid.  The entire floor has a lot more rigidity to it now.  I need to weld the spare tire carrier plate into place, after some cleanup of that part.  It looks ugly but the individual part appears to be N/A, so I'll make it work.

The other hole I tackled was the fuel pump mounting point.  This one was a bit more challenging since it's got a curve where it transitions from the back to the bottom of the floor.  I found a 21mm socket had the right radius to bend the patch panel to fit, and it turned out pretty nice!

The astute observer will notice the lack of the big hole where the fuel pump goes.  I'll cut that next - I wanted to get the panel in place first.

Here's where I ended up.

Notice the newly discovered hole on the driver's side.  There is some shoddy repair work under there which I will clean up first.  I found a few small holes to fix in random spots as well.  I still have to work on the fuel tank filler neck area as well, which will be interesting since there's a lip I have to make for the seal between the tank and the floor.  But this is actually coming along well.

I also bought a new welding helmet with better visibility and a larger viewing area.  That helped a lot by not having to guess-and-weld as much.  Good tools make for good results!