Onto some actual progress on my wagon. With the metal strips we had previous cut for the roof support chassis side, and 2 pieces for 2/3 of the rust holes under windscreen, I sprayed them in weld through primer to protect the metal from rusting. With this sheet metal, as with any bare metal, once your fingers touch it, the oil on them attracts rust straight away, so best to clean the pieces off once they are finalised with some degreaser and then paint to protect from surface rust.

Next I slapped some weld through primer onto the first rust hole we were going to weld our new piece into, the middle peice of the crowl which previously we bent the metal different ways to try and following the OEM design. The piece was then held in place via a magnet by hand by my father whilst I went around it tacking to the chassis. Our plan was to continue bending it in different angles whilst tacking it for the perfect fitment. With it tacked into position I then went around it to weld it fully. Here I tried different methods I had researched, welding normally and trying 'stitch' welding when you weld 1 spot quickly, almost zapping it, then move down 1mm and do again etc. Whilst doing all this we were fiddling around with the welder settings to try see what worked, going on some of the angles one or two sections blew through as well, but was easy to patch up the hole.

With this done we cracked out the grinder and started grinding down the welds to be flush with the chassis by using a flappy disk. A good majority of it was done, I'd say 90% with a few mini holes I need to go over again to completely fill (I still need to do this to this date, will do next weekend). Considering neither my father or I have done panel beating before we were quite impressed with our work, so have bent the metal into shape and to see it welded in there faily smooth, it's a good feeling. Only skill sets for this was my dad did his apprenticeship when he was a teenager in the UK as a fitter & turner, learnt to weld somewhere along the line, and me learning to weld in highschool and continue with exhaust jobs at home. We look forward to doing the rest of the panels!