I have taken some pictures of the stress crack areas on my car. I have tried to attach them to this post. Not sure if I have though? As I said before, I do not have any at the base of the windscreen A post yet. Something else you should do Gary while your car is apart, is reinforce around the door handles. The sheet metal in that area is very weak. People always try to close the door by pushing on the handle, and this causes it to dent. I have seen this on lots of cars. While my car was at the stage yours is at I welded in some little reinforcement bars from the sheet metal U shaped bit that the door handle bolts to, up to the box section that sits in the top of the door. This offers some strength to the metal above the handle, but not below. The glass is in the way below. I reckon the best way to fix this denting problem, and something I am going to try is to cut out a piece of aluminium plate about 2mm (80.000")thick and bond it to the inside of the door skin around the handle area. The steel in the area would have to be bare and preferably scratched up for a good key. Then bond it into place with a modern vehicle moulding adhesive. The type of product that would bond mouldings on to the side of a car.
It would of coarse be possible to weld a steel plate in with MIG plug welds, but this would cause an unnecessary potential rust trap and some finishing work.
In fact, this bonded aluminium idea might work for the deck lid opening cracks. The cracks around the rear tail lights would have to be done with the welder, as there is no nice flat area to bond the aluminium to. I do not have any experience with these adhesives, but I know some of them are very strong.
Johnny
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