This photo was taken from inside the right, rear wheel arch and shows the back, vertical section of the heel board and the rear of the outer sill, with filler piece. I think I remember someone saying you can make your own filler piece.......don't be a fool. These things are only a couple of dollars and they'll save you significant time & effort. It is very important to have this area sealed off well, as it's a prime area for rust to start.

hey bud! are you saying that i have to take my sills off to fit the a-posts? or am i just not understanding! i was going to attach the a-post to my door hinges, then line everything up with shims under door while door was shut against catch plate!

The only way you are going to get a truly strong attachment of door post to sill, combined with preserving the original seam appearance, is to pre-fab the door post onto the new outer sill, before putting the sill on the car. If the sills were in really good shape, I'd say just cut an access window in the footwell panel, behind the door post and work through there to get that critical, lower, inside flange attached. But, if the rest of the car is any indication of the condition of the sills, you will be much better off replacing them.
You are correct in your plan to attach the door post to the hinges, w/door attached, then line it all up with shims while the door is latched to the latch plate. When everything is all lined-up, you pin it all in place with self-tapping sheet metal screws, so that you can remove & reinstall everything without loosing your fit. This way, you can pre-treat the new panels with corrosion protection, before final assembly & welding.

floors and sills are new, no rust at all!

Interesting. Well, in that case......after you get everything fitted and marked, you can cut and access window in the outer, vertical panel of the footwell, to allow you to reach into the bottom section of the door post, from behind, and get a good, strong attachment weld on the flange to sill top. It won't be exactly easy to work in there, but you'll have to deal with it, I guess.
Not a really big deal (the degree of difficulty welding in there), and it's really important that you get a good, strong weld on that lower flange.

Hey, I just thought of something.............there may not be enough room, under the internals of the door post, to weld that bottom, inner door post flange from inside/behind. If that is the case, what I would do (and have done, before) is to cut out the area of the sill top, where the door post mounts and weld it to the door post before welding the door post onto the car. Give yourself an inch ahead of and aft of the door post to make the cut, with a fairly tight radius immediately below the sill top, keeping the horizontal part of the cut within 1/4" of the top of the sill (which will help control heat distortion), which will result in an easier job of hiding the butt weld when you are done.

Always bear in mind that heat, from welding, travels through metal the same way it travels through air: it rises. Keeping a horizontal butt seam close to a 90 degree, horizontal mold line (where the side of the sill folds over to form the top of the sil) concentrates heat along an area of the panel which best resists heat distortion. Of course, you'll have run some tack welds, using plenty of "juice", for full penetration, all along the butt seam. Be sure to grind the tack weld flush, before attempting to weld the gaps between them, or you'll have a bunch of places along that seam with insufficient penetration. I've had excellent results with cooling welds with a gentle stream of compressed air. Water will quickly make a mess and have you sitting with your feet on a wet floor, while working with a lot of electricity......never a good thing .

You can do the same thing, to get a good, strong attachement between the B post and sill top, which is an even more structurally important joint than the door post to sill top.

hey bud! the PO went to all the trouble of putting in new floors, inner and outer sills and 2x new a-post covers but just left all the old rusty a-post in place and left that mess at the rear!

Yeah, he sure did. I've long since given up on trying to figure out the "logic" of what POs/DPOs have done to these poor cars.
Your car is a prime example of why I much prefer dealing with major, original/"first generation" rust than ANY type of second or third generation rust, which is caused by the type of bodged repairs we see so often.

Right now, I'm getting ready to tackle some major, first-generation rust on a '73 Midget of a local MG club member. We won't get started on it for several more weeks, but I find I'm eagerly looking forward to it .

hey bud or anyone really! what size spot weld drill do you use? is it a flat ended one or one with a pre-drill on the end, oh and what tools to make all those lovely patches? got my fenders sitting outside ready for the scrape yard but i think i may have a go at fixing them for welding practice; both rear lower edges are rusted out so there are no fixing points!

I'd have to look at it, but I seem to remember it being 1/4". I first drill a small diameter pilot hole, in each spot weld (5/64". I think), then use the spot weld cutter, which is like a hole cutter. Some guys just use a 1/4" or 5/16" drill and drill through both panels, to remove the spot weld. It depends on which side you want to make the new "spot" weld (MIG plug weld, actually) from.
Never throw any sheet metal away, even rusty old fenders. You can practice welding on them (but it would be better if you practiced on some of the lap patches you've removed), cut new repair inserts out of them, or weld repair sections into them & put them back on your car.
Anyway, I've accumulated quite a collection of "shapes" (scrap panels cut from various restorations), over the years, which yield appropriately shaped repair sections for upcoming projects.

thanks bud! oh one last question a promise! not sure of the welding wire over there but we have 0.6mm and 0.8mm, im using 0.8mm but would the 0.6mm be better, as i assume it would lower the volts hence less chance of blowing holes!

Don't ever hold back from asking questions. As the old saying goes: "the dumbest question is the one that isn't asked."
I'm assuming that 0.8mm and 0.6mm is the equivalent of .030" and .025", which is how MIG wire is sold here in the US. I have .030" wire in my "big", industrial-type MIG and .025" in my portable MIG. To bew honest with you, I've never been bothered with the different sizes. Both work equally well for me, over a very wide range of work. Perhaps more important is the particular alloy of the wire you select. Although any welding wire that Lincoln offers will get the job done, the L-56 variety is best suited to auto body applications & welding positions, which vary wildly on each project (always avoid the "overhead" position if you can ). Your local, industrial welding supply house should have knowledgeable sales staff, who can recommend the correct welding wire for what you will be working on.

When you start welding, you will probably be overly concerned with keeping voltage setting down. Actually, you want to run as "hot" as you can, without blowing the steel away as soon as you strike an arc/pull the trigger. The most important thing is to achieve good penetration. Once you learn to set the machine for best penetration, and quickly adjust your eyes and hands to move the weld puddle at the correct speed and duration, the quality and appearance of your welds will continue to improve, while you learn how to fine-tune voltage and wire speed settings to adapt to the particular welding situation you are in. No one "setting", on your machine, will work for every weld you are going to make. THere's ALWAYS the need for some adjustments from piece to piece and day to day, even on the same piece (!).

Always keep four words in mind: "angle of the dangle". The heat is directed by the direction the electrode (welding wire coming out of the MIG "gun" is pointed. Every different angle you hold the electrode at produces a different result in the weld. Learning what works best, in a given application, is a matter of practice & repitition and takes plenty of time to truly master. Some welds can best be made by "pushing" the puddle, while others are best done by "dragging" it.

A good weld will be smooth, flat (requiring very minimal grinding to finish) and achieve full penetration of the two pieces joined. Initially, most novice welders make "ropey"-looking, caterpillar-like welds which penetrate to only about 50% of the thickness of the pieces being joined and are full of pinholes. With practice, you will learn to weld "by ear", as well as visiually and you'll know the instant you have left a pinhole in a weld pass.

The most important thing is to not become discouraged, when you find you are unable to put down a satisfactory weld pass. A MIG welding machine is not a glue gun, contrary to what most untrained novices seem to beleive. So, avoid trying to make long weld passes, without blowing through the steel. Any putz can dial-down the machine to make a long pass, with insufficient penetration & strength, while thinking that he's really "mastered" MIG welding. If you can't achieve full penetration, and avoid pinholes & burn-thru, you are not yet a welder and need to practice until you can. The good news is that it's fun and satisfying to be able to weld truly well and, with lots of practice, few people cannot master the skill.

Hey guys! well i started on my drivers side A-post today and it has aged me 10 years! it has been so differcult to aline the doors and panels!

1) The new panels i received from moss were way off! i dont actually think it was the panels more the rediculas way the PO had bodged the car together.
2) the A-post when fitted in possition over hung the sill by about 1/4 inch and the top didnt line up with the windsheild holes.
3) I put the door on to test fit and got good gaps all around except for where the edge the door meets the a-post (to narrow and the a-post was twisted so the bottom stuck out even further).

coffee break and calm down!!

4)started cutting a-post at the bottom to try and move it closer towards the outside panel as there was a gap of about 1/4 inch from the sill all the way up to the top shroud.

5)Gap between door and a-post still to tight! couldn't get the a-post cover over and the 3 wing fixing holes were no where near the the 3 hole on the cover!

staring to lose the will to live!

6) Ah Ha! to push the a-post forward i put washers between the botton door hinge and a-post; things seemed to be getting better although the gap is still to narrow at the top!


Any one got any suggestions? all the door gaps seem narrow, and where the a-post inner and outer meet the top shroud is a mess!

I hate the previous owner!

here are some pics from start to finish so far! 1st is of where i cut some patches off! there were 6 patches on top of each other each one smaller than the first building like a pyramid!

gap from outside panel.

a-post sticking out from door

to close!

after washers fitted to hinge, wide gap bottom no gap top!

bottom gap!

rear gap!

best so far!

door from inside!

closer looking at a-post from the back!

thats where im at! and i am fu**ing done in and going to bed!

Stevyn,
I think that what I would do on this one, before welding anything into place, would be to get everything lined-up & clamped into position as best you can. Then, walk away from it for a day or so, before coming back to look it over, again. If you are TRULY satisfied with the fit and if the doors open and close without hitting the A or B posts (and remember, the new paint will add a bit of length to the door post and you don't want to knock any new paint off the first time you open the door), double-check the alignment of the outer covering of the A post with a straight edge, to be sure it is dead-even with the adjacent part of the outer sill. Any gaps between the door post mounting flanges and the kick panel/footwell side? How about between the top of the sill and the door post? If it's a Heritage panel (door post), it should be a near-perfect fit. If it's not, then I'd say the DPO f_ _ked-up the alignment/fit of the sill.
You'll want to be able to test the opening & closing of the door, to make sure all is well, before you weld anything. Once you are COMPLETELY satisfied with it, self-tapping sheet metal screws will hold it in alignment, without slipping or allowing the movement that clamps sometimes allow.

I guess what has me concerned, right now, is the alignment of the outer sill and the footwell side, as seen in the photo. But, hard to tell just from a photo. This has GOT to be right. If it isn't, you will just be compounding the problem by going any farther without addressing the sill, first.

Keep us posted on how the alignment is coming along. I'd LOVE to be there, in person, to help you line it all up, but there's this body of water called the Atlantic Ocean.......

hey bud i was hoping you would turn up! i have had to modify the the inner a-post so much that it stands about 1/2 inch off the outer sill! so i will have to fab a small piece to secure it to the sill. how can i increase the top door gap where it meets the a-post? if i shim the top hinge it will push the inner post to far forward! can i cut the door to make it fit? what should the gaps be?

oh and how and where do you clamp the inner a-post? if i open the door eveything moves! i take it i will need some help?