________________________________________
Week 21
Got out in the shop Saturday and just plain didn't feel like staring at that trunk area all day so I moved up front to finish dismantling the front
suspension and dash related areas.
After all my gabbin' about windshield removal, I finally got to it. Cut the lip that held the glass in place and out she came, easy as whatever. I was a little anxious to see just what condition the front window channel was in. As stated in an earlier post, it looked real good with the glass in place with only the common stress crack at the cowl on the drivers side. Once I yanked the old gasket from around the frame I was able to confirm it... the front window channel is near perfect all around... nothing but blue paint along the entire lower edge!
After the steering column was removed the dash frame and blower housing came out easy enough. The frame on this car has been severely hacked up for for an old radio installation and will not be used. I have a replacement that only needs the correct color applied. The underdash wiring harness looked very good with only 1 splice that I could see. The bulkhead connector looked questionable. The blower housing is also in excellent shape and will require little or no work... even the insulation behind it was nice. The steering box was no problem along with the K member. I'm still a little skeptical about this car being manual steering. Everything was good and dirty and appeared to have been in place for a long time but the bolts holding the steering box on just didn't require that little extra 'umph' to break them loose...
Question: Would PS absolutely be on the fender tag?
Sunday had me welding on one of the rear lower window channel corners that I had repaired/built. Things when pretty smooth using butt weld joints but I think I'll quit trying to use them on things other than small repairs like the corners. All the posts and direct correspondences I've had with you people, combined with the fact that the two areas I've done so far on this car have taken a lot of extra time and didn't turn out as
good as they could have, brings me to the conclusion that I need to get my head out of my... the sand... and use lap joints with the offset flanges.
___________________________________________________________________________
Week 28
Both "rebuilt" corners are in place at the rear window and they look pretty good. The right side corner was welded in using butt welds while the left was installed using what I'll call "supporting strips" under the edges. It was a much easier and much more "accurate" way of lining things up.
2 4" long rusted out areas at the upper right corner of the rear window channel have been patched. These fixes took nothing more than small "angle" shaped pieces trimmed, fitted and welded into these spots after the cancer was removed leaving clean rectangular holes to patch.
Wouldn't you know it, after all the cutting, repairing and prepping of my donor filler panel(between rear glass and trunk) the repop replacement panels resurface for sale again. This months issue of Mopar Muscle had a blurb about Stephen's carrying them. My donor panel had a golf ball sized dent and the trunk lip was buggered up a tad. I opted for a new panel. If you remember, my donor piece was still attached to the back edge of the package tray metal and the 2 braces that tie the 2 together... all to be installed as a single unit. Yesterday was spent separating the panel from the braces/pkg tray metal. With the braces and rear package tray metal lip still attached to each other I went ahead and welded them in place on the car. A test fit of the new repop panel showed a perfect fit. I just need to line up all the braces that support/weld to the panel, mark and drill the holes for spot welding, and then weld in the panel itself. As for the "left-over" donor panel... a '69 Super Bee (that is... its owner) has started working at a little upholstery shop on my route to work. From the road I can see that the car is in dire need of this panel. I'll probably stop and offer it to the car...er... the owner.
All permits and such are in for our new house. Construction should start VERY soon. I'm sure it will put a major crimp in what little "project time" I have now but I will try to keep the group up to date as I make any progress.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Week 32
Well, it wasn't in backwards or anything, everything went great. I started with the hardest areas to reach... the lips that mated with the quarter panels. With hardly enough room for me, my hand, the welder, my head and the welding helmet, these welds were a "one at a time" procedure. First I would twist up to see just which spot I would do next, a hold the "gun" where I was gonna weld. I'd weave my way back out, put on the helmet, emotionally prepare, and with one quick motion, dive back in, get the weld and pull back out. Oh... forgot to say... these welds were made from the quarter panel side... you can't access the trunk side!
Did I mention that this rear panel alone required 68 "spot" welds.
Where this panel meets the quarters up at the window channel itself was brazed or something from the factory to help seal off the gap between the two. I welded these areas up, along with the similar areas at the lower, trunk lip overlaps. The only thing left to do at this panel structurally was to replace some "supporting" pieces that connected the window channel lower corners to the package tray area. These areas were rusted out pretty bad. I just welded in little angle shaped pieces to hopefully replace what had rusted away. It wasn't the prettiest thing I've ever welded.
You can't imagine how great it was to step back and see a solid window channel all the way around on this car. Yea, the "spot welds" needed to be cleaned up a little and a little spot putty here and there, but what a hurdle I had passed.
I'll use Marine-Tex to smooth out the shape of my hand made corners and paint the whole underside and welded areas with POR-15... No one will have to go through this again... not on this car anyway!
________________________________________________________________________________
Week 33 - 35
After getting these areas close to where I wanted them I cleaned all the bare metal areas and applied a protective coat of that self etching primer that I got from Eastwoods. It seems to stick pretty good as I couldn't scratch it up very easily after it dried.
The trunk pans have yet to be installed. With all this "final" work at the rear glass it has been nice to be able to stand in the trunk area for access. Soon... very soon.
It is an incredible coinkydink that Chris(Mr. Coronet) brought up using paint stripper... that is exactly what I spent this last weekend doing... stripping the paint from the outer surfaces of the unibody. I used up the gallon of POR-15 stripper that I had bought at the Charleston Mopar show. It took a couple of tries but I figured out how to get this stuff to strip all the way down on the first app. First off, don't follow the directions... well not to the letter. DO work with a smallish area at a time. I took 80 grit paper and quickly went over the area to be stripped. This seemed to help the stripper get deeper into the coats. Keep in mind
that I'm stripping a poor quality coat of black paint applied over and a factory coat of B5. Next I sprayed on
a wet coat of stripper. I noticed that this stripper seems to "flash", like paint, within a few seconds. At first I let it go like that and applied a second coat 15 minutes later, as per the instructions. This did not work very well. For later efforts, I kept spraying for my first coat until it stayed wet looking and did not "flash". Doing this and waiting a minimum of the suggested 15 minutes, the black, the blue and most of the red primer scraped off in perfect "ribbons" using one of those razor blades in the
holders. After the area was scraped I washed it with water using a piece of steel wool. This rubbed off what little was left of the primer. With a few spots requiring the use of some 180 grit, I had bear metal with one application! After washing as thoroughly as I could and drying, I sprayed on some Oxysolve to protect the metal until I can finish removing all the
paint and "caulking" from the drip rail.
So, as it sits now, the paint is stripped from the tops of the rear of the car, A & B pillars, the roof and the top of the cowl... lookin' better all the time. I noticed that the stripper seemed to soften up the filler down inside the drip rail, but did little to ease it's removal. How do I get that stuff outta there? I've pried up a few chunks but just prying it up doesn't seem like the way to go. I was thinking of sticking the pointed attachment to my air hammer and seeing if I could slowly and carefully pop it out that way. Someone out there MUST have had to do this before... huh?
________________________________________________________________________________
Week 36 & 37
After lifting the pair into the trunk for the umpteenth time, I positioned them to their correct spots and screwed them down 2 or 3 places each. With them held down tight I used a black marker and put a dot on the frame inside each 1/4" hole that was drilled through the panels. After sand blasting the trunk area a while back, I had coated all bare metal with Oxy-Solve. This stuff leaves a coating that can play hell with a MIG welder. The dots show me where to grind a clean spot for welding. I removed the panels ,for the last time, and did the chore. This was a good time to give the welding surfaces one last look-see for any old remaining spot welds left from the original floor. Yes, found a couple along with some frame rail "flanges" that could use some flattening out. With that done and after a quick vacuum of the rails, it was back in with the drivers side floor panel, for the last time.
That first weld is the toughest... am I forgeting something?, is this really where I want the trunk?, did I leave a tool or small child down in the frame rail? With all the confidence in the world I zapped the first spot. The drivers side floor fit perfectly, all weld holes fit flush against their respective support surface. The single floor brace that is welded under the trunk and spans from side to side was positioned and welded as it took its place in the total integrity of the floor. After welding all the spots just back to the portion of the trunk that goes up and over the shock mounting area I positioned the right side floor. This side does not fall into place. It must be forced into position with 2x4s and wedges and a BFH. After one or two welds to hold it in place the center seam is welded from front to back. I had to do some trimming of the panel while it was place... that wasn't any fun.
With the seam welded and just a few "spot welds" done on the right side I decided to call it a day. I felt good about what I was seeing. It was a far cry from the scary mess that faced me back in August. I even got the wife to take some "candid shots" of me sittin' in the trunk welding for posting on the web site. With the fuzzy feeling of having done a bunch, I grabbed my wallet and watch... my watch... now where is that watch. Hmmmm, I took it off over by the '70 just before I put in the floors for welding... =8^o DOAH!
_________________________________________________________________________________
Week 75
To refresh your memories, way back when, I had welded in a section on the rear panel that accommodated the P-L-Y-M-O-U-T-H letters. I was not very happy with my work as I had warped things up a bit and was not looking forward to the body work involved in straitening it out. Well while strolling the isles at C@C, I happened across a very nice and very strait rear panel that had been neatly removed from it's donor and was calling my name. The process of replacing the panel seemed to me a better alternative than straitening the one I had. $45 was all that it took, so me and the new panel went home together.
I actually did the removing of the old panel and pre fitting of the "new" old panel back in July not too long after C@C. The process is the same ol' drilling out of the spot welds procedure. This particular panel is a breeze to remove as all the spots are right there on the outside in plain view. The panel comes right off the back with no finagling(?) what-so-ever... although your quarter panels are sorta floppin' in the breeze after removal, especially when the trunk extensions are not present. Anyhoo, got that puppy off in a couple of hours and still had time to "clean up" the remaining "spots" off the back of the car. That's where I left it back in July.
When I was looking over the panel at C@C to determine it's condition, I failed to pick up on a flaw. It wasn't completely my over site as those sneaky sons-of-guns selling the panel had cleverly disguised a defect. You see, the key hole had apparently been buggered up somewhere along the way and the seller disguised it by enlarging the hole and giving it back it's normal "look". Without staring right at it could go un-noticed... ok, ok, I blew it, I missed it! My goal for this weekend was to cut the key hole from the old old panel and splice it into the new old panel. I cut the hole out as part of a 3" square, laid it down over the bad hole, marked the cutting lines and went to cutting. The only thing to remember here is to pay attention to which side of the line you cut on! The thickness of the cut off wheel will seem huge if you cut wrong... and you'll probably end up making a mess of a simple patch.
After cleaning up the area I had just cut out... let me pause here and pass along that I used a small, fine metal file to clean the edges up. I have finally learned that with a die grinder it is just to easy to get the edge to be welded just enough out of whack to complicate whole thing. I use the fine file and the piece fit so nicely that the rest of the process seemed to go extra smooth. Back to it... I held the old old key hole in it's place on the new old panel with this magnetic thing I had bought years ago but have yet to get any real use out of. It worked great for this. Dropped the welder down in low(heat) and in no time the old old key hole was in it's place on my new old rear panel. No problem.
It felt good to get out in the shop and work on the car again after all these months and I'm looking forward to documenting the process through the MML... it helps keep the enthusiasm up!
______________________________________________________________________________
Week 76
With hammer, dull chisel, gloves, glasses, welder, helmet, wire cutters and screwdriver, I climbed into the back seat area of the shell and started bangin', shapin', and weldin'. It took a couple of hours to get the contours of the two floor halves to look like they lined up and weld it all down. A little filler at the seam and no one will be the wiser. I'd like to chalk the miss-match up to the stampings as the perimeter of the replacement floor panels hit damn close to where the original floors were attached.
A couple of moths ago I found a NOS drivers side inner fender panel for the '70 in Hemmings. I had not planned on replacing this panel. This area looked as though it could be blasted and doctored up. After I saw the ad for the NOS piece, I took a good look at the battery tray spot and rethought my thinking. Sure as hell I'd blast that spot and be left with more holes than I could repair and would be kickin' my self in the butt knowing I coulda had a new panel... I jumped on it.
I also scored two very nice fenders from my parts guy... (shameless plug- J&J Cars and Parts 1-904-964-5039). I had gotten two good Satellite fenders from him a couple of years ago, but these were a bit nicer and didn't require trim holes to be filled so I swapped pairs with him... + money of course... NO parts guy is gonna GIVE you anything, no matter how logical your argument is!
_______________________________________________________________________________
Week 77
As I ran my hand over the surface to see how dirty and dusty it was, I couldn't help to notice collections of the Oxy-Solves residue built up in little dried puddles here and there. That wouldn't do. Blew off the dirt, broke out the pre sanding stuff and then started giving the entire surface a good once over with some Scotchbrite, with some area requiring some honest-to-goodness sandpaper to dig up some really stubborn crud. That was a MUCH more time consuming job than I thought it would be! But it had to be done... I think I'll try to be more careful when coating with Oxy... the next time. The final step was to wash the whole surface down with grease and lacquer cleaner.
I got to use my HVLP paint gizmo. I bought it many years ago from TIP when they first came out. I understand that they have improved these systems since I bought mine but I'll just have to stick with what I got. It's a single stage(?) unit for one man/small job stuff and has worked very well for me and the tasks I've asked of it. I have yet to spray any color with it but have painted a car and a half worth of brackets and coated the '72 with filler/primer several times and it was no trouble at all. I never really thought I was using it correctly because I was still getting tons of over spray and using lots of paint. Since I was gonna fire it up again, I thought I'd take some time to experiment a little with it to try to get paint to cover good with as little over spray as possible.
The HVLP gun is as simple of a device to adjust as you could imagine. There is a big honkin' knob at the handle that goes from no air through the gun to full air through the gun in a quarter of a turn. Then there's your "fluid" adjustment at the back of the handle which basically adjusts how far you can pull in the handle. Finally there is the spray pattern adjustment at the nozzle... just turn it one way for a tall thin conventional looking pattern, and back the other for a squattyer to round pattern(I've had the gun spraying as fine as an airbrush before). Anyway, This time out I tried opening up the "fluid" all the way and opened the air flow just enough for it to draw and spray with a decent pattern. THAT WORKED GREAT... I don't know where my head was at before. After a slight adjustment here and there, this thing was laying down a beautiful 8" pattern of easily controlled paint... er... primer... well, you gotta start somewhere.
Got a good two thinnish coat on the trunk floor and opened up the gun to see how much paint was left. I had filled the cup about three quarters full and there was not quite a quarter of the cup left. I'm not sure how that equates to surface area covered but I'll state my findings as officially as I can by saying... that tickled the poop out of me! :)
________________________________________________________________________________
Week 78
With the rear panel still not welded back on, I spread a dab of filler on each spot where a weld was ground down and along the seam down the middle where the two floor halves meet. At each "spot weld" I used the eraser end of a new #2 pencil to put a little round mark in the filler to try to replicate an original spot weld. Hopefully some of the indentions would remain after sanding down the excess filler. Once dry it didn't take too long to sand the spots and the seam down to a decent finish. Unfortunately about half the fake spot weld mark went away. An online buddy suggested taking a punch with a flat circular end the same diameter as a typical spot weld and whacking a mark onto the metal for the same effect. Sounds good to me... I'll be trying it. As for the trunk floor, it will take a little putty here and there to smooth things out for that "not a replacement trunk" look.
Knowing it was close to time to re-install the couple of brackets inside the trunk, I dug them out of a box for bead blasting and evaluation. The trunk latch "bracket" at the back of the trunk just needs to be installed... the bracket that holds the bolt that hold the spare in place will need some repair as the bottom edge had rusted away about 3/4 of an inch up. This lower lip will need rebuilding. Both pieces were cleaned and coated for protection are Rae patiently waiting their turn.
On to the rear panel. I tried that POR15 paint stripper months ago and THOUGHT it worked pretty good... until the feedback I got told me it didn't compare to the good stuff... Aircraft stripper. Welp, bought a gallon and put it to use on the rear panel to be installed. I will say, this stuff works... not near as many applications to remove the paint down to the metal, although the original paint still put up a fight! After I was satisfied I couldn't get anymore paint off with the stripper, I broke out the sandblaster to get the rust and paint from the seams and edges. This panel was lookin' real good. Next I got to use an air tool that I picked up at C@C... one of those flanger/hole puncher things. Man what a breeze to put the holes around the edge required for welding. P-thunk... P-thunk... P-thunk... right around... had some 40+ holes in a couple of minutes! Beats the poop out of a drill! After playing with the alignment between the panel and the rear of the car I clamped it in place and made a few welds to secure it there. That's where I left it for that weekend... undoubtedly my most productive in months.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Week 79
You know, I could've ground down the welds or welded in the bracket in the trunk or done some other trunk related thing that needed doin', but I didn't. You know what I did? Something I've been wanting to do for over 4 years... something I didn't feel I should do until the rear panel was back in place... I cut off the bulk of a QUARTER PANEL! Wow that felt good. I got my panel ripper and went to it!
First I scribed a line well within the area I know that the replacement will cover. It didn't take but a few minutes and I was staring at the rear window mechanism, the outer wheelhouse and a view of the trunk I haven't seen before. I studied the wheelhouse looking for a plan of attack. There are a couple of brackets that weld to the top surface that are a little difficult to access. After cutting away as much of the wheelhouse as I could from the outside, I drilled out about 12 spot welds from the wheel side of the "house". A few more spots needed drilling lower front and lower rear of this piece where the inner and outer overlap each other. I then too the cutoff wheel and cut from font to back just short of the seam between the inner and outer "houses". What I have left is the lip of the "house" still in place... part of which is sandwiched between two other layers and part of which is just spot welded to a single layer, either on the inside or the outside.
Well, I had done enough damage for one day...
_______________________________________________________________________________
Week 80
But first I did a little backing up and cleaned up the welds from attaching the rear panel. I'm getting a bit better at using the cut-off to grind down the bumps from the "retro-spot welds." The biggest plus with using this tool is the total lack of heat build-up... if you keep the wheel moving! The trim holes that I had to fill across the back panel cleaned up so nice that I could hardly feel them as I ran my hand over each spot... makes for very little filler :)
After scraping and sanding off some stubborn, left over paint that the stripper and sandblasting did not get, I wiped down the areas around the weld spots with enamel cleaner and applied a dab of filler at each spot and also at a low, pitted area at the mid span of where the weather strip goes. After I sand those spots initially, I plan on giving the edges where the rear panel meets the body a good coating of POR15, inside and out, and then give the whole kit-n-caboodle a good coat of quality buildable primer. I'm itchin' to do this so I'll probably get out there during this week.
While working on the drivers quarter last weekend, it was apparent just what a chore the whole quarter pane replacement process was going to be, and I started thinking about the fact that after all the work to do one side, I'll have to start from the beginning on the other side. To make the other side feel like it wasn't being left out... and to keep my progress close to the same for both sides, I grabbed up the tools again and cut off the other quarter along with about half way back on the outer wheelhouse. No surprises... in fact I found this car to be in excellent shape down in it's structural bowels... you know where I'm talkin'... where all the sh*t could be hiding!
_____________________________________________________________________________
Week 81
I have been chompin' at the bit to get back into the '70 since the '68 is road worthy and being driven. A few weeks ago in preparation for jumping back into work on this car I completed building a beefier dollie for it. The older, wooden one did not work well at this new garage due to the fact that there are 3/4 inch lips, or drops, from the inside concrete floor to the outside of the garage. The old dollie, though sturdy, was not really as mobile as it could be and the casters just were not up to the task of taking the small "ledge" at the garage doors... After all, I would be needing to roll this car in and out of the garage regularly for blasting and such. The "new" dollie is of all steel construction with bigger casters. It utilizes two of the extension pieces from my rotisserie so I only had to weld up two other parts to have a full functioning dollie... and the whole contraption breaks down for easy storage.
I had stopped work at a critical point. I had cut the bulk of the quarters off of both sides, cut out most of the bad outer wheel house sections, and had actually gotten one wheel house area darn close to test fitting the new repop wheel house. This is where I picked it back up. By holding the WH (Wheel House) up close to it's in place position it was fairly clear that a bunch of the lip that mates to the car needed to be cut away along with a section at the top which would require the lip to be cut off completely. I marked the lip with a screwdriver and pulled out the cutoff wheel. The first cutting session was real close. It only took one more trimming to get the WH to fit fairly flush in it's spot. Just a little tweaking of it's overall shape and some cleaning up of the mating surface on the car and it looked like I had the WH in a good spot.
Next I grabbed up the trunk extension for this side. In my opinion these extensions are not the "crispest" stampings in the world. The lips and edges require a lot of shaping to mate cleanly. I spent a few minutes trimming portions of the lips that had way more material than necessary. I guess from storage and moving and whatever, this extension was bent a good bit outta shape. You couldn't tell by just holding it and looking at it but trying to fit it in place with the WH there it was clear. After giving the extension a few good twists it seemed to fit pretty good the initial try. The front edge of the trunk extensions is part of the last 4 or five inches of the rear wheel lip radius so it has to line up with the WH in this area. With my initial test fits this point between the two panels was a good inch off... this was reduced to less than a half an inch after a little "manual" adjustment. I can pretty much see where the extra half inch can come from so I'll be rebending some of the lips on the extension.
With the WH and trunk extension clamped into place I pulled the repop quarter panel off the shelf and laid it on some saw horses. After scribing a line about an inch in from the edges, I grabbed up the cutoff wheel again and went to it. Within a few minutes I had the front and top edges cut back. Without hesitation I held the trimmed quarter in it's place on the side of the car. It fell into place PERFECTLY! I was tickled to death. A quick couple of clamps at the wheel well and vole... the entire perimeter of the panel fit flush with the metal on the car... even the body line/crease lined up. I examined all the matting surfaces to look for big gaps between the quarter and the WH and/or trunk extensions. The gaps were minimal.
I went and got my wife and drug her out to the garage to see. Expecting a big ol' "Atta boy", I instead get..."That's great" murmured with no expression whatsoever.... "When's it gonna be finished?" When will I learn.
________________________________________________________________________________
Week 82
Now I try my hardest not to get "anal" about things that you can't easily see or can see at all. For example, way back I had to replace a large portion of the back half of the package tray. I spent WAY too much time trying to replace the areas exactly even though no one would, or could, ever see these spots. I finally forced myself to just make the area structurally sound with less regard for what it looked like when exposed. I was glad I saw the light. With this wh, whatever I do to correct the problem will be difficult to see. If I bend a new lip with pliers, the joint between the inner and outer wh'es could be seen if your head was 2"wide and you were stupid enough to insert it between the tire and car. Knowing this, I still couldn't bring myself to bending this expensive piece of sheet metal all up and leaving a nasty, bumpy lip. I know, I know, you're asking "but Sandy, what about not being so anal?" Well, the way I chose to fix the problem left a somewhat visible scar… maybe.
What I chose to do was to make a cut sort of parallel to the lip about 2" from the lip on both the front and rear edges of the wh. I then clamped the wh back in place and the hung the quarter panel over it in it's place. Again, the quarter panel fit flat all around the edges. But now with the wh front and rear edges "adjustable", I just allowed the cut edges to overlap each other as I pushed in the quarter at the front and rear of the wh. Once the quarter was pushed in to where the bottom edge fit flush at the bottom of the car, I clamped it in place. I then stuck my head in the wheel well and scribed a line down the edge of the overlapped metal. This would be where I would weld the 2 free edges together to get the exact depth I needed. Smart huh?
I yanked the wh back out and prepped it for surgery. I cut the pie shaped piece from the wh front and rear edges, pulled the 2 sections together and butt-welded the whole kit-and-caboodle. After a bit of grinding and a test fit the thing fit beautiful. It will take some filler on the trunk side of the seam because the splice is in pretty plain view. The wheel well side I'm not worried about, as I will spray undercoating to cover the entire area.
The only thing I might do different with the other side is to forget the butt weld and just leave enough overlap between the 2 free edges to weld down both side… give me a break… you don't become "non-anal" overnight!
 |
| Wheelhouse cut |
 |
| Overlap marked |
 |
| Ready for weld |
 |
| Repair as seem from wheel well |
 |
| Repair as seen from trunk |
______________________________________________________________________________
Week 83
With the drivers side outer wheelhouse "adjusted" I could now turn to mating the full quarter panel to the car properly. To this point it is supported with a couple of those clamps that are inserted through a 1/8-inch hole with a special pliers… I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I have always liked those thing 'cause they are just so darned handy… anyway… with the quarter panel clamped at the bottom, flush I might add, I start to scribed a line around the complete panel onto the car. My plan is to use that line as a guide for trimming the car for using my handy dandy panel flanger… I can't wait.
After marking the front edge and top length I see that the area at the rear of the panel is not "mapped out" at all. I have a jagged piece of new quarter sloppily mating to a half assed cut section on the car. It takes me a good hour to plan what to keep on which panel… in fact, after all the staring and head scratching, I still manage to make a cut where I don't want one. I finally get the back edge figured out and then marked for flanging.
After all was marked I removed everything again and figured how much to leave on the car in from the line I scribed. I made a couple of test flanges on some scrap metal and did some measuring. I marked me a new line about a half an inch in from the old line… that seemed like enough to allow the flanger to do it's job and leave an 1/8 inch "ditch" to weld in. I grabbed up the cutoff wheel, took a deep breath and started cutting. 45 minutes and several cutoff discs later I finished. The cut was clean and it looked to be consistent as far as the ½ inch was concerned.
The next task was to start flanging! I was really looking forward to this. I started at the rear top cut and was going to move toward the front. As I started things didn't seem quite right. The flanger felt kind of "mushy" with each "kerthunk." I looked at the flanger… looked at the car… then it dawned on me that my flanging was including the undercoating crap at the far trunk side of the metal. Damnit, another slowdown, like I need another something to slow me down. Well I grabbed a scraper and a sharpened screwdriver and various other tools and commenced to prying off all the stuff that was left on that inch and a half bit of vertical surface of the car's quarter panel that remained. This was no easy task. I was twisted around and bent up in all kinds of awkward positions for quite a while. That sucked.
I eventually did get the crap out of my way and was able to finish flanging around the perimeter of the opening. After that I re-clamped the outer wheelhouse and new quarter to see how perfect it all would fit. I don't know how I did it but the 1/8 inch welding "ditch" I had planned on was not there. The new quarter hit right against the offset crease leaving no place to weld. I didn't sweat it too much. I just chalked it up to whatever and trimmed an additional 1/8-inch off the new quarter. All was well as the quarter and car were basically matched up for joining. A little tweaking here and there along with some lip adjustments at the trunk extension and we are REAL close to buttoning this bad boy up. Oh yea… I forgot about the other side! =8^P
 |
| Clear view of flanges |
 |
| ...at front |
 |
| Needs blasting |
Week 84
With one side of the car ready to accept it's new sheet metal, I thought I might clean the area up some by removing the undercoating from the wheel wells. I hear a lot of moaning and groaning about undercoating removal... the torch and scrapper method must be one huge pain in the ass. I have had the pleasure of removing the undercoating from the front wheel wells of the '72 RR/GTX but used a different way. I had heard from someone, somewhere, to use diesel fuel to loosen the undercoating and then scrap it off with ease. I used this method with the '72 and it worked great. I used the same method here. With a spray bottle, I get the area really wet with fuel and try to keep it wet for a couple of days. This requires spraying it down several times over that time. The longer you keep it wet, the easier it comes off. After 3 days of spraying and soaking, the undercoating is like wet clay and scrapes off easily with a plastic putty spreader. I will admit, all is not perfect with this diesel fuel method. It does have it's serious drawbacks... the smell, the smell and , oh yea, the smell. I am in a detached garage with 3 big garage doors so the place can air out in a few days after you're finished. If you're out in the garage 3 feet from the washer and dryer, meaning your better half is always having to smell it in the garage and in the house... you might rethink doing it this way. Also, it just dawned on me as I was spraying away that this method might not appeal to some for the same reason that some don't use chemical strippers... the fuel will get into the seams and creases and if not removed completely will probably come back to haunt you after the paint is applied. Since I had the spray bottle in my hand and the place stunk to high heaven any way I went ahead and sprayed and scrapped the front and rear wheel wells all at once... a huge mess but it needed doing.
I hope to have the other side of the car prepped for it's new metal shortly and will then put the unibody up on the rotisserie for a complete sandblasting. This will include removing the undercoating from the underside as well. I may try the torch method on the underside. A friend told me that the undercoating doesn't have to be blistering hot, just a quick pass of the heat and it comes off fairly easily. We'll see.
 |
| Stuff needed to clean |
 |
| What a mess |
 |
| Clean as a whistle |
No comments:
Post a Comment