Roadster pick-up---Hotrod Surprise

O.K.--So here I am, thrashing like a maniac, welding in patch panels and finishing off all the metalwork on the cab. Just finished welding a patch panel onto the drivers door bottom, and it turned out pretty good. Stood back to admire my work, and HEY!!! What the Hell is this??? The reveal in the patch panel on the bottom of the cowl is about 30% wider than the reveal in the door bottom. When I bought the roadster pickup, the patch panels came with it. I figured---Bonus---won't have to buy them. I never paid any more attention to them, except to hold them up, individually to see that they were the correct length. I even experimented a bit with my new mig---I butt welded the patch panel onto the bottom of the cowl, leaving about 1/32" gap between them as per rod magazine "how to" article. It turned out super, very little distortion, blah blah blah. I then used a lap joint (about 3/8" overlap) when I attached the new door bottom to the existing 73 year old doorskin, as per conversation with a local "bodyman/painter". It turned out ok too, but it isn't as pretty as the butt joint. Anyway, all I can figure out is that model A Fords must have changed the width of the reveal line between 1929 and 1930, and I have ended up with panels from 2 different years.Now, how am I going to fix this?---you can bet your bippy I ain't going to "unweld" anything. Since I am going to need some polyester filler anyway, I guess I will just "widen" the reveal in the door bottom with a bit of filler to make things look right. This will be a pain in the keester, but I won't have to buy anything or undo anything. Heck, I wasn't planning on the Oakland roadster show anyway.

See Ya
Brian


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