Reinforced the RH tail light, Haleiwa Ride

Yesterday was the Haleiwa Metric Century ride, which I rode with my wife. So no work done on any of our cars. The previous Sunday I did work on the E9, I just never got around to writing about it.

When I welded the latest patch in place I thought I had a problem where the upper edges attached. The tabs were too small to weld. Since I was out of time I had to wait a week to test the welds.

First thing I did was to grind down the beads. Sure enough, neither end was convincingly secure, and some of the beads toward the left end of the bottom were not very solid. I decided to strengthen the sides with new material on the back side and redo the welds along the bottom.



This is a view of the outside after grinding down the welds. On the left side the weakness is caused by a hole where the original metal was too thin. The tab just below that extends to the left turned out well, but too small to be relied on to carry the load. Above the hole what metal remains is very thin.



Same location viewed from inside the trunk. If the original flange were solid all the way done my design would have worked, but that notch where I cut out some rust weakened the joint.



The problem with the outboard end was the joint, which lacked any overlap. Here I have already ground away the area, to prepare for welding.



Another look at the entire tail light area, At this point I did the POR-15 wash and metal prep, and when that was dry I shot everything with Weld-Thru primer.



The two reinforcements, after metal prep treatment. The one on the left goes inboard. Note the Z-bend at one end.



View from outside after new welds.



Reinforcements welded in place.

Like I said, yesterday was the Haliewa Century Ride. I managed to take a few photos with my old cell phone, not nearly as good as my Nikon, but nice just the same. The weather was perfect, the best Haleiwa Ride I can remember. Usually the wind is ferocious, and some years it rains throughout the day. Last year my wife shreadded a tire, and we stopped to help two more riders with mechanical problems, so it was a long day. This year my wife was riding on a broken toe so we only did half distance, and without any interruptions and despite a long stop at Ted's Bakery we arrived back in Haleiwa around 10:30! We had planned to eat lunch at Haleiwa Joe's, so we sat outside on the lawn to wait until they opened.