By far, as has been my experience so far, the quarter panel sections of the Center Door are the most complicated to assemble/repair.
Let's take a look.
The PILLARS COUPE or front pillars (the beginning of the front quarters), were in SAD shape. These needed total replacement. This has been mentioned in a previous blog post, but suffice to say, they were rotten.
The pillars not only provide structural integrity to the sides of the car but also to the roof. As you can see, the top pillar has a pocket hole on one end. This allows the pillar to be screwed into the roof rail from the underside.
Below is a rough sketch I made detailing how I believe the bits and pieces should fit together at the top when all said and done. This was created with the help of three photographs provided to me by a generous MTFCA forum member who had some pieces and had an original car where this area had been photographed.
These are the completed front pillars, cut a little longer than needed to be able to adjust. The angled brackets allow for the attachment of the instrument dash. The long channel is where the window garnish for the windshield goes, including a piece of rubber. The two smaller channels are for the BELT RAIL FRONT QUARTER and PANEL FRONT QUARTER (as viewed left to right in this photo)
If you refer back to the first picture in this post, you can see that the pointed ends of the pillars are not present. I had thought they were missing but I did actually find them in the bottom of a storage box. When I received my pillars, I was able to epoxy those pointed sections into their rightful places.
Although upside down, you can see the PANEL FRONT QUARTER here. I have both of the originals, which were warped from damage and on the angled end (to the front of the car, left in this picture) they are a slip fit into the channel cut in the pillar. The HINGE PILLAR end is screwed into the HINGE PILLAR. That piece of wood just above the gasket board is the FRONT QUARTER SASH REST. The notch allows for space for the roller that the glass rides in to seat. The interior fabric panel will be nailed to that strip that runs half the length of the PILLAR COUPE.
Here's a different angle. This would be from the sheet metal side of the car (outer)
Finally for this post, we have both front quarter sections together, minus the headers. It was extremely important to make sure that the openings for the windows were consistent the length of the pillars. There are some metal channel that aid in this attached to the pilllars just behind the PANEL QUARTER. The pillar to the rear shows a tenon and a mortise. We will discuss those in depth later.
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