Glas GT Restoration - • B-Pillar, Rear Side Pieces, Front Fender, Painting

The B-pillar
The B-pillar area is often underestimated during restoration. Most of them don't have any bubbles that would be evidence of rust coming through. But as you can see in the photos, the rust that is accumulating behind the bottom panel can't be ignored.
Unfortunately, there aren't any panel reproductions for this area available. Therefore, you have to draw some paper stencils. cut out some ample-sized panel pieces, bend or shape them into the correct form, and then fit them into place.

B-pillar area   

The B-pillar is already rebuilt     The reproduced step panel needs to be lengthened.

The rear side piece
After we rebuilt the B-pillar, the rear side piece came next. A typical weak point is the wheel housing, where the inner fender and outer fender are welded together. Water tends to collect in there and rust forms quickly. There's hardly a GT that doesn't have this problem.
Since we had gotten a new inner fender and side pieces too, the entire side piece was taken off.

      Slightly rusty inner fender.    The inner fender is detached here.

      New inner and outer fenders    The fender goes from the B-pillar to the rear hood panel

      Spot welding on the panel    The left side is finished.

The front fender

Finally, the front fender was welded back on.
Front fenders are unfortunately not reproduced due to cost considerations. There are various panels available that can be formed into fenders, but that demands handwork with great skill. It's hard to get an exact fit from these parts too. In the case of a fender that is not fully rusted out, you can use one of the readily available A-pillar panels to make panels from, as can be seen in the photo. At the least, the fender part behind the A-pillar should be cut out.
We cut out the rusted parts and replaced them with new panels that we made ourselves. The critical places can be easily seen in the photos. To sum up, old fenders should be salvaged as much as possible.

     Left fender with reproduced panel     Right fender with reproduced parts already ground down

       This repair panel is available.

                                                       The front crossbar

   Caulked front inner fender    Caulked floor

     Finally painted!

In early February 2012 the auto was shown, in half-finished condition, at the Bornemann Fahrzeugtechnik Company stand at the Bremen Hall. A lot of club members were astounded at the progress of the work.
For example, it could be seen how the overlapping panels were spot welded into pre-perforated holes. and how panels that abutted to one another were layered and welded step by step, all the while ensuring that they remain distanced far apart from one another to reduce the heat and minimize the warping of the parts. Finally, the weld seam was tin coated.
Putty was removed from all areas that showed a thick build-up of it. The surfaces were finely and neatly beaten out, for example, on the front fenders and the hood. This was met with astonishment at the workshop, since nobody does this because it's too expensive and time-intensive. Instead, putty is simply applied and the job finished. Finally, the right side and the front closure under the radiator grill were rebuilt and the car was sent to the paint shop, where only a little new putty had to be applied thanks to my painstaking preparation.
The re-installation of all the parts went relatively fast. Almost all the entire wiring harness was rebuilt. The car was finished in time for the Glas Club meeting in Switzerland and it was actually hard to tell any difference from the way it looked before except for the estimate that I got in fall, which put its value twice as high as before.
Up to now, other than in Switzerland, I've been to the historic 24 Hours of Le Mans, and I'm so happy the car is OK again.
I don't know if I would have done this if I had already known everything that it would involve. But now I'm very happy that I brought myself to do it.

Joachim Bomba, with additional information from Uwe Gusen

Translation in English: David Rives