I've taken a couple of days off from work around the Labor Day holiday, so today I concentrated on the S10. I've been procrastinating working on the exterior A-pillars because I feel I'm at the limit of my ability. I've waited for a few weeks, but no one's knocked on my door volunteering to get me over the hump, so today I dove into the work. The passenger side A-pillar was done a while back and had a big dip where the new metal met the old. I cut more of the old metal out and replaced it There's still a slight dip, but it's not as pronounced as before.
Bent some 1/2 inch square tubing for the ceiling ribs using a jig made from a piece of oak cut in the shape of the 58 Del Ray roof. No heat - just muscle. The five pieces came out relatively uniform. Spaced them out every 9 inches across the Malibu door frame. Tacked the front-most ribs to the inner windshield flange.
I temporarily set the windshield into the frame and added some braces to push the top out slightly before starting on the top inner windshield flange. It will span the interior ceiling between the two inner A pillar panels and attach to the inner edge of the windshield frame. I did not want to take the hour round trip to my son's shop to use his sheet metal brake, so it used a hammer and a piece of angle iron to put a 90 degree bend in a piece of 20 gauge (I neglected to take a picture until after I had arched the piece). The first attempt to arch the flange with the stretcher was too high, so I took some out with the shrinker. I also added a slight bend to the leading edge where the flange will meet the windshield frame. I still have a bit of trimming to do.
I completed the inner portion of the driver's side A pillar today. I duplicated the passenger side by removing the unnecessary Malibu sheet metal, rolling the patch through the English wheel, hammering the flanges with hammer and dolly and stretching the windshield flange slightly.
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