I stripped the toe board/firewall piece and welded it in. The replacement inner fender assembly is from a newer TR so I kept the top of the original firewall. The older one's like mine have a hole on both sides of the battery box so you can switch the steering and pedals to the other side with relative ease. One side has a blank plate, the other is like a box to hold the clutch and brake cylinders.

I welded in the new battery box. I don't understand the logic with this, the box has a flange all the way around to spot weld except for the top which is part of the firewall. You would think it would either all be seam welded or have a flange around all of it. Sure would have been easier with all flanges.

The inner fender is just sitting there at the moment. I need to strip the cheap lacquer primer, bolt it to the frame and see how well it fits. It seems to fit reasonably well but I have the feeling I might have to cut and move the bottom welding flange inwards.

I bolted the inner fender to the frame and figured it would be a good idea to fit all the front end pieces before final welding. The left fender to apron (the part with the grill) fit pretty well, definitely needs more adjustment but good enough for now. There's a lot of flex in the apron so it can be manipulated a fair bit.

The left side with the new inner fender is another story. The fender needs to come forward but there's a large flange that sits behind the A-post so I can't move it any further. I do need to replace a good size part of it including the flange so I think I can fix that part. The bigger problem is the fender at the top back works it's way outward quite a bit more than the bead trim could possibly cover. The front isn't great either, fender is a lot higher than the apron and the holes to caged nuts between the two are not even close.

Some serious thinking to do before I can put this part behind me. I think I should drop the hood in there too, see how that sits.

Those body lines are tough on old cars. I wonder how good they were from the factory. I'm going to rely on the fender bead covering some of that on my truck.

Apparently the body lines weren't very good at all from the factory, especially the pre #60000 ones like mine.

There's not a lot of adjustment that you can make either. The bead will help a bit but the panels still need to be flush with each other so I'm a long way from that. I'm going to put the hood on to see if it sits square and then go from there. This is the final hurdle I think. If I can get this to fit right the rest will be basic body work.

So after a lot of measuring it turns out the back part of the scuttle (cowl) is pushed out somehow hence the fender running away from it as it progresses forward. A friend has a couple of TR's and measured both of them and came up with 44.5", mine was 44.875 which is pretty significant.

I attached a come along to a some steel tubing and the offending part of the scuttle and pulled it closer, left it for a couple days. Seems to have come in close to a 1/4" and it's all lining up a lot better. I need to do it again and then weld the A post where I had to cut it.

The next problem is the fender seems to have a bit of a bow in the middle so the hood to fender gap isn't uniform. I think I might have to cut it along the top and weld in a small filler strip to get it straight. Still thinking about it.

I may be over detailing this build but I find when I do a search for similar problems that I encounter I rarely get the detail I need. Here's the problem and then a miracle happened and a nice picture of it finished so really not much help.

I decided to tackle the outer sill. Needless to say the re-pop piece fits terribly.

The bottom sticks out 3/16" past the rear qtr (dogleg) so I cut a 3/16" strip out of the bottom.

As you can see by the huge gap between it and the door, the height of it is over a 1/4" too short so I cut it and added a strip, I still need to grind the welds down a bit. It's just clamped in, I have a bit of adjusting to do before final welding.

The door has a curve or bow from side to side, the rocker is flat. I beat some curve into it and then english wheeled it after I cut it. Not perfect but much better than slopping a 1/4" of filler on it.

A small update.

I welded the outer sill in, very happy with the gap between it and the door, really couldn't be any better.

Next up is to do the patch panel repair on the front fender. There's a flange on it that goes behind the A-post on the door side and secures the fender from that end. Naturally the flange is nowhere near the correct location. As you can see in the 2nd pic it overlaps the door by at least 3'8". I cut it off and will weld it back correctly once the whole fender is patched and fitted.

The bottom sticks out about an 1/8" so I'm going to have to cut a strip out of the bottom flange like I did with the sill. Also need to english wheel some curve into the panel which is dead flat while the door has a fair bit of curve in it.

It looks like a pretty uniform gap between it and the door so at least that's something.

You're doing very nice work. It's going to be a great looking 3.

Thanks V8nutz, I hope you're right.

I welded in the fender patch, not the best fitting piece but it worked out pretty good in the end. I had to cut the flange that attached to the A-post on both the fender and the patch and move it back about 3/8". I have since welded the flanges together

The patch didn't line up with the fender so I cut a piece off the old fender and aligned it with the patch so the wheel opening was correct.

I fixed all the little dents but it will still need a skim coat of filler.

I've got the right side of the car in pretty good shape now. Started working around the back to the other side. The back left of the tail panel was mashed pretty good, up to a 1/4" pushed in from where the replacement rear fender sits.

I ground out a pile of filler before I hit a lot of lead, getting annoyed with this filler over lead type repair. Would be nice if it was one or the other.

I cut the welds holding the flange and was able to move the top half back enough to line up with the fender. The bottom half was too mangled so I made a small patch. It has a flange on one side and the bottom, curves from top to bottom unevenly, then curves left to right and then right to left. It was all kinds of fun to make. Came out pretty good, still needs a bit of work before a skim coat of filler. The top of the fender needs to come in a bit, I need to trim the taillight part. Also need to reshape the metal where the taillight goes, it was formed to shape with lead naturally.