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  #11  
Old 01-16-2018, 12:09 PM
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Originally Posted by StingRay View Post
Everybody that repairs cars starts somewhere. That kind of bodywork was pretty common years ago. It doesn't make it any more desirable today. We need to remember when some of these repairs were done these cars were not nearly as valuable. It's because of these repairs that these cars are still with us today such that they can be made right. That car otherwise back in the day may have ended up at the crusher.
I do agree with you with “old school” repairs. For all the reasons you’ve mentioned.

However, sadly these repairs aren’t all that old. Our customer purchased the project started from someone and brought it to another guy for bodywork & paint. He said there were some red flags, but it wasn’t until it was painted that he realized he needed to “put the brakes on” and pull the project away from that person / shop.

He than searched and found us and now we are digging back into the “fresh” paint and correcting things properly for a good foundation.
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  #12  
Old 01-17-2018, 09:26 PM
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So as I worked my way towards the back of the quarter panel removing the lap seam front to back I figured (big mistake there!ha) That the joint would have just wrapped around the back of the quarter panel to the factory seam under the cast quarter panel extension.....wrong!

First, when I unbolted the quarter panel extension, I noticed a big crack in some body filler. With some investigative stripping with a clean-n-strip wheel I uncovered the rear corner had been damaged previously and just filled in with filler. A large portion of the edge of the quarter panel was split open and filled over with aluminum type body filler. I was able to take a flat screwdriver and pry nearly the entire rear vertical edge of the quarter panel in and out freely.

The first task was to try and fabricate a new corner to the quarterpanel that would give it a factory type edge to spot weld to the rear tail light panel.

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(Before Pic) This was as I was trying to clean up the paint in order to find the lap seam to correct it. I couldn't find it and then noticed the big crack in the body filler. Note also the plastic body plug that was mostly filled over with body filler.

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(Before Pic) As I dug in, more filler just kept popping off. Chunks such as this were nearly 3/8" thick. The problem was the mis-shape, and when the bolts for the quarter panel extension were tightened, it twisted the metal and cracked all the filler.

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(Before Pic) This is a really poor picture, but it was just trying to show that basically the entire corner was sculpted out of filler. I eventually ground / cleaned it until I just got to a normal paint / primer edge.

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(Before Pic) This is a reference pic of the driver's side, showing what it should basically look like.

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To make the edge that would wrap around and spot weld to the tail light panel I first bent a 90 and shrunk it to the correct curve of the quarterpanel.

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Next I needed to add the bead that the quarter panel extension gasket actually sat on.

It doesn't show up well in the pic, but this bead actually tapers in depth from shallower at the top to deeper at the bottom. I did this with some offset dies in the bead roller and adjusted wheel pressure and how I fed the piece in to help get the taper.

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This view looking down the bead helps show the depth / taper shallow up as it goes away from the camera.

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I made the initial piece long so I could pie cut it in a few areas to shape it on the bottom for the bumper notch. As I mentioned, I carefully pie cut it accordingly, folded / bent it, and hammered & dollied accordingly to soften the bends where needed.

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This is an amazing / sad picture.....As you can see the previous repair did not even include the "bumper notch" it was filled over smooth!! When I initially test fit the bumper, it obviously wouldn't fit properly!

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Just a close up view showing how the finished part was shaped and trimmed ready to fit to the quarter panel when needed.

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Here I'm holding it up next to the driver's side corner. I'd say it's a pretty close mirror image. For a small part, it had some complicated / busy shaping (For a small area)

Next post I'll focus a bit more on more of the tail light area problems and repairs
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  #13  
Old 01-18-2018, 04:35 AM
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Gojeep Gojeep is offline
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Some pretty tricky joggles needed at the bottom of that piece. Often takes longer to do these small pieces than a large panel!
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  #14  
Old 01-19-2018, 07:42 PM
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Here are several pictures showing a bit of the process how I pieced together pieces of the tail light panel. I did this in sections to make it a bit easier, but also so I didn't lose certain points of reference by removing it all as one large piece.

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This looks like a large area removed, but it was the simplest area of the tail light panel. This was fairly flat except for the radius on the bottom to blend into the rear bumper pinchweld area.

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Her is the first section and the bottom radius in place (the quarter panel edge was just tacked in to help check fit of everything as I went)

Here I've cut out the stamped area that flows into the body panel below the right tail light.

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That section has been fabricated and welded into position (this tapered / stamped area fits under the cast quarter panel extension piece)

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Here I've cut out another section that had a mounting hole for the quarter extension.

I've also shaped and welded into place the lower corner of the tail light opening. This piece has a raised edge that blends away at the center of the vertical edge of the opening.

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Here I've jumped ahead and have the complete tail light panel finished. Not shown, but I did also remove and fabricate the top corner of the tail light opening as well (look up a couple pictures and you can see how it was damaged previously)

The pictures don't show the various slight raises and depressions needed to fit the mounting studs of the quarter panel extension piece.

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Finished picture with the quarter panel edge fabricated in the previous post welded and finished onto the quarter panel.

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  #15  
Old 01-21-2018, 05:38 AM
Oldnek Oldnek is offline
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Very nice job on those end pieces. And great to see it done properly.

Unfortunately with panel shops, We are seeing this more and more, you wont get a job where they spend the extra time in fabricating panels, unless its a private job by customer whom is not going through a insurance company. I have been seeing this a lot lately where some shops are qualified plasterers (Bog, Bondo, Plastic or whatever you want to call it) then dressing it up only for the make up artist to apply colour so it can be picked up by the customer.

I feel mainly for the apprentices who are coming through these trades, not learning tradition skills of body/metal repairs. With Insurance company's only paying around $25 p/h, plastic seems to be the only way to make profits for these businesses.
I myself have to keep the mindset of bodgy repairs when I see Fillers, It's not really shoddy work, but governed by the dollar. If you know what I mean.
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  #16  
Old 01-21-2018, 02:35 PM
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So to wrap up the repairs on the passenger quarter panel all that was left was a second lap joint on the sail panel that was visible from inside the car. I would say this is an old repair, or the first time a full quarter panel was replace on the car, and the previous lap joint I removed below the body line was the second time someone had replaced a partial quarterpanel.

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(Before Pic) I started by removing the paint and body filler on the sail panel to gain access to the lap joint we could see from the inside.

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(Before Pic) Close up of a groove dug out of the body filler with a clean-n-strip wheel

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(Before Pic) I've stuck a penny in the ground out groove to help show how much the sail panel was built up with body filler.

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Here I've cleaned up the area pretty good and I'm ready to start shaping some new panels to help correct this area.

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First I had to continue cleaning up some filler on the quarter to rear window filler panel joint. This was also all body filler with the "joint" faked by just cutting it in the body filler.

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I wanted to check the fit of the stainless rear window trim before I got too far ahead of myself......

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As you can see there is no way the stainless trim would have ever been able to "snap" into place. It overlapped onto the body by a good 1/8" - 3/16"

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And finally I noticed that the inner bottom corner of the window opening had fallen out. Turns out they just filled it with body filler (the front of the trunk jamb corner had the same situation as well)

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I've removed the first section that I will fabricate and shape a new piece for.

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Here is the first piece fit into position.

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From this angle you can see I've incorporated the start of the window opening edge as well as the 90 deg. flange that the rear window / decklid filler panel will connect to as well.

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Here I've created the matching 90 deg. flange on the filler panel. I tried to keep this panel as short as possible because I couldn't gain access to the back side to work the weld because of the inner structure for the decklid and hinges.

Looking back, I should have extended this piece to incorporate the trunk jamb edge but I thought It would have been easier to save the original. (in the end I had to come back and add a new edge anyways (I could have saved one length of weld seam...oh well!)

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Here the new filler panel is tacked into position and spot welded to the quarter panel from inside on the 90 deg flange.

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Here I've removed the section of the sail panel that I'll replace. I had gone out far enough to get into the correct shaped portions on either side of the previous lap joint & weld.

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New sail panel section shaped and tacked into position.

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Here is a close up showing the mis-alignment of the trunk jamb to the exterior sheet metal (as I mentioned I should have incorporated this edge from the start on my panel) I knew I had to raise the corner as it was low to start with (remember it was filled with body filler previously)

I thought I would have been able to do a "relief" cut in the jamb and just ease it up and weld it all back up. It worked in my head but not in actuality.....

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So plan B was to just shaped up a new edge for the trunk opening. Here I've rough cut out the area to start with. I fabricated a new edge and trimmed this back some more to fit the new piece and welded it in (sorry I forgot to take a picture at that finished point)

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Here is a finished picture showing the re-made window opening. No longer has the large hole left in the lower corner as it did before!

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Here everything has been fully welded up and I worked the welds as best as I could (there was a lot of internal structure to work around here obviously) I know for certain I won't need a penny to check the depth of my filler here now!ha

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One last close up of the new window opening with the stainless trim fitting properly now.
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  #17  
Old 01-21-2018, 05:31 PM
Charlie Myres Charlie Myres is offline
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Most impressive work Dane!

It looks as if you use MIG – can you describe the process to get a finish as good as yours?

I used to use MIG to weld panels but it found it very difficult to get a presentable finish,

Cheers Charlie
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  #18  
Old 01-21-2018, 05:39 PM
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Looks good Dane
Thanks for sharing!

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  #19  
Old 01-21-2018, 05:46 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Myres View Post
Most impressive work Dane!

It looks as if you use MIG – can you describe the process to get a finish as good as yours?

I used to use MIG to weld panels but it found it very difficult to get a presentable finish,

Cheers Charlie

Thank you

Typically I just MIG for fitting and tacking pieces in. This is especially true for small areas or pieces. Larger panels or sections I’ll use proper clamps for holding my butt welds and tack with TIG.

Once fit & tacked in, I planish and grind all tacks smooth and follow that up with full TIG welds
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  #20  
Old 01-21-2018, 08:18 PM
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Kerry Pinkerton Kerry Pinkerton is offline
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Dane, did you tip and hammer over the edges of the door or weld the edges and file to get the gap?

Nice job regardless.
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