Really Ratty Rusty Ruby 510/miata

[Indy510]

While changing the wiper cowl area, I chopped the front of the roof a 1/2" to get rid of the reverse rake roof line. I still hate the c-pillars, but that will get fixed later:



Then I took the body back off:

[Indy510]

I made two identical plywood shapes that fit the door skins, then clamped them together to start making door jambs:

[Indy510]

Then I made some wheel tubs that connect the 510 skin to the miata-outline frame:

[Indy510]

Below the doors is a 1.5x0.75" square tube rocker panel, which helped make the side of the car straight. Then I used an on-sale Eastwood dimple die set to make this filler piece:

[Indy510]

The old trunk lid I made was never going to look right, so I traded some of my last Datsun parts for another trunk lid, with a poorly shaved lock hole:

[Indy510]

This time, I clamped the trunk to my welding table and made sure everything was flat when I welded it:

[Indy510]

Now that I had a trunk with the stock shape and curve, I could start building the widened futo-fab window frame:

[Indy510]

These two pieces started out as a flat angle bend... then I shrunk them both ways until they fit the shape of the window frame:



More dimples... I should have used a smaller hole saw, but all I had was the 1-1/2" one I got for the roll cage:

[Indy510]

And it fits:

[wayno]

That is the most positive rep I ever gave anyone in my life, talk about customizing, you building a whole new car from scratch almost.
I might have messed up and hit what I thought was positive rep but it may have turned into negative rep, sorry I didn't mean to do that.

[DRIVEN]

This car is still ridiculous and I still really, really like it. Your fab work has really improved over the years. Great work!

[Taterhead]

[Indy510]

Haha. Thanks everyone.

I cut off the c-pillars last month. They were never going to look 'right'. I think my mistake last time was not having all the body panels mocked up. So, this time everything is still on the Miata:

[Indy510]

I started with a lightly shrunk 20ag angle at the top, to match the roof's curve:

[Indy510]

It still didn't look 'right', so I leaned the other pillar even farther forward:

[Indy510]

I basically finished both sides, but each pillar was 5 separate pieces of metal and had almost no patina left. So, I made a template off the best one:

[Indy510]

[Indy510]

The first two bends were easy on my super cheap folding brake, but the reverse bend was done clamped to a table -- using a soft hammer:

[Indy510]

Then I used the same hammer and a sandbag to curve to the flat part:

[Indy510]

But I got carried away English wheeling the hammer marks and made a compound curve where there shouldn't be one: