Progress time! Got a nice big 1200 x 1200 piece of mild steel sheet which we will use to patch up all the rusty goodness.

Started with the chassis side on the roof section, a few posts above we cut out the bad rusty bits as the rest was only surface rust. We needed to replace a smaller section on the lower piece (chassis side theres 2 layers, with the roof skin then sitting on top of that) so we cut the smaller piece accordingly.

Next we then had the upper piece which ran from the back of the rear door to the front windscreen. Towards the front the chassis actually curves outwards (can see in the pic below) so we decided to do it in 2 pieces, can see faint scribe markings where we cut it on a curve to follow the shape required. Nothing actually got welded in today, remembered last night at midnight I needed weld through primer and the shops that would stock it were shut today (Sunday) so welding will occur next weekend.

Next up was one of the 3 holes under the crowl. This section was the one which actually rusted under the windscreen. Theres a step in the factory metal with a radius where the windscreen would sit.

I don't have access to a sheet bender so we improvised, to be honest it worked perfect. Used a block of wood and hammered it on the corner so it bent on the crease (does that make sense?) and yeah. Little bit of fiddling around but we got it to this shape. We decided it will be easier to tack it in from the top the slightly bend some sections in the lower bit for a perfect fit.

Last piece we got around to today was a second out of three holes under the crowl, the one passenger side where the hinge goes (probably the trickier one). After a 3 hour procrastination chat with an old childhood mate/father who came over to see how rusty rust could be, we got around to this.

Not fully complete, ummm'd and arrr'd over a few options and decided to go with 2 seperate pieces as oppose to one, as theres too much bending and yeah, ceebs. Used some engineering tools (paper) and started folding around to get a rough shape of the lower section, it sits rather flat.

We will then have the upper angle piece weld on top of this. Also had the right hand side piece 30mm longer so we could bend it up the side of the chassis and fold it over (looks like it was the same from factory).