I did make some posts while working on the passenger side hinge pillar (as opposed to A pillar or B pillar, which I think are car terms. The FAM refers to it as the hinge pillar). Full disclosure: I'm learning this as I go along. What that means is that my processes are sometimes unorthodox and some really disagree with me. To my defense, I think my work will hold up. Time will tell. I have hung the door on the finished side and it hung properly, the gaps were pretty good and it opened and closed as it should. Your mileage may vary.... On to what I think I know.
I was very concerned about about removing too much of the sheet metal at once. Some take it all off (inner and outer cowl panels) and go for it. I was worried about the hinge pillar itself flexing and/or moving out of position. My thought was that if I kept one piece of factory metal in place, it would support the pillar and keep it's orientation correct. To accomplish this, I removed the bottom of both the inner and outer cowl. This exposed the hinge reinforcement. I made a new one and added it over the old one. I chose not to cut the old one out, due to fears of my lack of experience and lack of welding skill. (I'm working on the driver side now and have completely cut out the remnants of the old hinge reinforcement. I guess I'm more confident now....) Either way, I made the repair to the hinge reinforcement, then repaired the bottom of the hinge pillar. Once that was done, I removed the rest of the inner cowl, ground out any remaining rust, then fit the replacement inner cowl and welded it in place. After the inner cowl was done, I removed the remaining parts of the outer cowl, fit the replacement and the inner-to-outer cowl and welded them into place. As I mentioned above, by going sequentially, I was able to keep the hinge pillar from moving. Everything seems to be structurally sound and the door seems to work as designed. It is, in my opinion, easy to accidentally tweak the hinge pillar out of alignment or shape if too much of the surrounding sheet metal is removed at the same time. Hope this helps! My passenger side write ups start on page 6 and run through page 11 ish. Good luck! Let me know if you have any specific questions.
