The CF Bedford Rebuild Begins

Part 9: The rebuild starts - side windows (panelled)

I want a clean curved box; well that's what it is. The CF Bedford does have nice curves though.
I was going to keep the side window recesses but as they were a bit rusty I decided to panel the side windows flat.

On the left is the left rear panel fully welded, the right picture is the inside of this panel. The brace is missing on picture two, will be glued in once ground down.
The holes were cut out 30mm smaller than the sheet of panel steel, then a tool called a tama-tong (not sure on the spelling) was used to put a small recess in the original panel, this enables the patch panel to sit inside the recess and when the weld ground down is flush.
Welding is very slow with a spot weld every 6 or more inches going around and around and around (over hours allowing cooling in between) until the panel is fully welded. This method usually gives very little to no distortion to the panel.

The right rear panel was done the same way, but the front right panel (middle panel) was to rusty to patch, instead the whole panel was replaced (made from panel steel). The side door window needed filling as well, but as the window, door handle, hinges, lower swage and center door stop mount holes also needed doing it was easier to make a new skin for it.

All the panels had braces welded/glued behind them (original braces) to help support the sides and hopefully take out a bit of the hollow sound when driving.