Another tailgate and the start of roof trouble

After fitting the tailgate decided that I was simply not happy with the fit and finish, it wouldn't sit as I wanted. It would appear that this is not a stock item but a copy part and would not fit correctly. I decided that using another tailgate I would have another go.

To ensure that I get the hatch in the perfect position I decided that I was going to take another approach to the problem, I decided that chopping the roof skin and placing it on the car. This however was not as simple as I would have wished, I first had to fetch it down from the roof space which on my own was tricky, with the roof skin down I started cutting it which it almost immediately lost its shape so I can already see that this is going to be tricky to out back together so lets hope its not too hard.

First I placed the skin on the car too see the size difference, as you can see in the picture the car is a lot bigger.



The roof skin was then marked out ready for cutting, I decided to do this outside where the grass would soften the sheet metal falling as it was cut.



With the roof cut into 6 sections, I then started to place the sections onto the car. The 4 outer sections sat on the roof and the middle needed the central brace welding in.





With a few cuts I was back in the same position but this time the tailgate fitted the way I wanted it too



I then set about to joining up the tail gate