The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[JTR70]

Nice work Phil! This side of the car is really taking a nice line! Door to rocker relation is looking good! What a PIA to open that ledge to bring up the elevation. Well worth effort though and not going to need much filler in the end. You're making great progress! Keep it coming! Justin

[roy mawbey]

Keep it up Phil, that work is not easy at all. That front door closure to the front fender and the gap is so hard to get right. The door needs that lead and its knowing how much to apply.

Following with real interest Phil.

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Made some visible progress today finishing at hour 1278. Got some more metal welded on the closing panel flange so I could get a 5mm gap to the door.


Next I adjusted for flushness(less one metal thickness) to the door.



Used this slide hammer tool to move it out where needed:



Finally can start on the rear fender repair. Found a nice piece of 20ga. and rough shaped it to the area:


Got the patch trimmed to fit pretty good.




Next will be cleaning off back of fender to bare metal and rust treating areas that will be inaccessible after patch is welded in.

[John Pierce]

Wow Phil! Lots of work to get there. Can't wait to see final result.

[JTR70]

You are really making some headway! I see you opted to create your own pinch seam versus buying the vendor pre-flanged fender repair section. Any reason why? Perhaps like the rest of these parts so much modification is required that it pays just to make it yourself?? Keep up the Nice work Phil!

[Phil Planck]

Hour 1281.5
Spent 3.5 drudgery hours today with not a lot to show for it. If you look at the last picture above you can see a lot of lead on the remaining rear lower fender. I had melted off as much as I could several weeks ago. Got the rest off today with a wire brush on my angle grinder and a scotch brite pad, wearing a dual filter mask. After zinc priming the closing panel I spent most of the time doing hammer off dolly work on all of the small dents and a few gouges hidden by this lead. Finally got it pretty smooth and very little filler should be needed here. Put a Krylon Rust Tough top coat on the Krylon zinc primer and called it a day. I have been using epoxy primer as much as I can, but did not feel like mixing it up in this cold weather, even though I warm up the shop when I am working. I have used this Krylon on my trailer fenders and it has held up very well for years. Next session I should be able to start welding in the rear fender patch.

[John Pierce]

Don't you hate it that some days you work really hard and don't have much to show for it in the end? What brand epoxy primer are you using?

[Phil Planck]

John
I am using PPG products, including the primer. I hope to do all but the top coat, but we shall see.

Phil

[Phil Planck]

Hour 1284
Did some final fitting and arcing of the patch so it fit flush with just magnets:



Got it clamped in place ready to weld in:




First set of tack welds planished, ground smooth and replenished:

[JTR70]

Beautiful! All that fresh sheet metal is really changing the outlook! Keep at it Phil! Hope you're staying warm out there.
Justin

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Justin. What do you mean, cold? Why it got clear up to 7F yesterday. Probably no work today as we are taking a short trip to celebrate our 48th wedding anniversary.

But, wanted to share a welding tidbit. When I tacked the upper portion of the repair piece, the gap at the bottom disappeared. I figured okay, the shrinkage had to cause that. So I started filing the tacks down to smooth them(John, I also used the grinder a little), then marked the HAZ area with a black marker and planished each HAZ as best I could. Hard to do along the top horizontal weld. The gap opened up, but not back to original. I posted this issue last night on one of the metalworking forums and feedback so far is yep, that's what happens and you have to planish each tack as you go. Talk about a slow process. I asked about the wisdom of putting a tack at the bottom before starting the other tacks. Justin, as you have written, that can cause other problems. No feedback yet on doing that.
My solution to this gap issue, which has happened to me before, was to use the THIN Dremel cutoff disc to re-create the desired gap.

[JTR70]

Never personally experienced that sort of cold before but I can image its very hard to get motivated to do anything especially crawling under a car to do metal work.

I have experienced the same phenomena your describing with the closed down weld joints on curved pieces. As a matter of fact I just experienced it with that repair fender section on my coupe.

I scribed the cut line onto the repair section while clamped on the fender. Once trimmed the joints were almost a mirror image. I tacked it into position and began welding the lower flatter section first so I could chase the metal over the upper curve. Once half up I cut the upper tacks free, so far so good. As it proceeded I noticed the repair section beginning to overlap the fender. I could tweak it back out into position but the strip was now at the wrong approach angle relative to the fender. To keep it simple I allowed it to come in and zip wheeled the gap back open again. Its a weird thing that happens welding a relatively flat repair strips to a curved or slightly curved fender section. It fits beautifully until you start stitching it together; then the unexpected adjustments have to be made. Also if you don't allow it to move and settle in(or close down the gap) the repair edge really begins curling and contorting like a piece of bacon. Happy anniversary Phil!!
Justin

[John Pierce]

Hey guys! Great conversation here. Why not tack the whole piece in position and leave it all tacked instead of removing some of them? Does this put too much stress on the metal insert? Would planishing each tack help before moving on?

[Phil Planck]

John
Good questions. As Justin posted on his thread(I think that is where it is), tacking each end may cause some gap unevenness, as in bulging. I posted this issue on a metalworking forum and the only response I got was that each tack has to be planished as you go. The shrinkage of the HAZ is what is causing the gap to tighten. Obviously this is going to really slow down the process of tack welding, but possibly make up in time and quality not having to open up the gap with a zip wheel and adding other stresses to the panels.

A technique that Bruce Baker taught me is shown on my Samba thread where I butt welded a long(door to front end joint) joint. You overlap both panels by about an inch. Tack the outer, new panel to the old metal. Then using thin cutoff disc(s) start at one end and slit to the next tack. Peel the metal away and tack where the new panel has dropped down flush to the old panel. No gap to change with this method as there is no gap. It worked very well. I considered it here, but the tacks on the old metal overlap also shrink the old metal a little and those have to be addressed. As much hammer and dolly work as I had done on the old metal, it did not want to risk unknown results to that reworked metal. Here is a shot in process:

[Phil Planck]

Hour 1289
Spent today finishing up the welding/grinding/planishing of the fender patch. First I removed the rocker to get access to the bottom and did another series of welds:



After a few more iterations of this process the welding/grinding is complete:



Using this technique took a little over 5 hours. I may need to do a little more planishing and some hammer and dolly work to even up the damaged area a little better, but I checked 3 spots along the weld and they looked like this:










Took a lot of time but I'm pretty happy with the results.

Next up - hem the end of the fender over onto the closing panel ala the Ron Roland method.