A hot afternoon was a good time to do the first layout of the hinge pocket. My goal was to use one piece of metal for as much of it as possible. So I approached it as though I was building a cardboard box. After laying it out on paper, I transferred it to poster board and cut it out. I then made the folds and taped it to the patch panel so that I could locate the bolt holes. After locating the holes, I punched them out and used the new bolts and weld nuts to attach it to the patch panel. Pics below.
Take aways from this first try: I know that the hinge pocket is not centered in the hinge pillar. So driver side and passenger side will have to be made specifically for each side. Also, the flanges that stabilize the hinge pocket were spot welded onto the pocket by GM. I'm hoping to make the pocket out of a single piece of metal, which cuts down on the welding that I have to do.... Based on the pics, you can see that I need to tweak the lengths of the top and bottom flanges. All in all, I think that this is doable for me. Baby steps for sure, but I have to start somewhere.
OBTW, the reason that the mockup looks skewed is because my hole puncher wouldn't reach far enough in to make the exact hole that I needed. The real pocket will be drilled out on a drill press, so it'll be straight.
