SC Coupe Restoration

[tperazzo]

Thank you Justin and Roy. The front trailing edge is a tough one because it's so important to get good gaps. No filler allowed, or it will easily be detected when the door is open. Instead, all the filler must be on the door like the factory did. I will revisit this area when setting the gaps with lead soon.

I moved on to the rear quarter door edge now. The previous owner or bodyman butchered the upper half with a pointy hammer of some kind. It's not too bad, but the lock post flange was also damaged and rusty.





Someone folded the flange back to gain access to the outer skin, but they did a horrible job on the outer skin as well. The skin sheet metal was over stretched, so I cut some of it out. The lock post flange looks cut in the picture, but its actually folder over onto itself.



Here's the lock post flange restored.



This is a picture of a very crude hammer form used to shape the repair patch.





Not easy to form this, but I'm too damn cheap to buy one.






You can see in the last photo, I had to slice my patch to get the elevation right. No matter how many times I measure, I always screw up one way or another.

Part 2 coming soon.

[MMW]

Very nice work & I love the hammer form you made. Keep moving along & soon enough you'll be done with the metal work.

[Phil Planck]

Amazing - that exact same area was damaged and rusted on foamcar. I may have to repair(extend) the same flange you repaired. Mine is there, but not as long as your repaired one.




Phil

[roy mawbey]

Tom,

Very inventive work from you Tom, this area of the bodywork has me scratching my head and after looking at both yours and Phil's and Bruce's photo's I still cannot get my head round it.

My problem is still that last transitional (approx 8mm x 12mm) step from the lock post panel to the rear fender. Its clear to me the door has to be hung first to have a datum that corresponds to the rear fender. I can understand as well as Bruce says if the lock post is original providing its in good condition its far easier to keep it or repair it.

In the fantasty world it would so much easier if the lock post panel had the full last step formed and stamped and the rear fender panel had a mating part just to suit. However that could never happen. So, in your case Tom you can make a section to fit because its not all free to move and although difficult it works. With the repair panel Phil has with the 15mm ? long 90 degree flange and a lock post that appears to have no transitional final step I cannot see how he will make it to the next stage? That 15mm long return flange has to be cut ( or joggled ) at some point before welding ??

I presume that is lead on the final photo below the repair you made
on the transitional step?

Wow, making my brain work ( not that well though ) on both yours and Phils thread.

Roy



I await with interest your stage 2 of this repair.

Roy

[tperazzo]

As promised Part 2 of the rear quarter and lock post area, but first thank you for all the encouragement.

Phil, our cars are so similar. Both sides of my car had problems in this area. Best of luck on your repair, I know you will persevere.

Roy, this area is confusing and I've been following Phil's thread and Bruce's comments diligently. All great information by the way, especially the note about checking the latch engagement and mesh.

My guess is that Phil's RD repair panel is trimmed long and it either needs to be cut or flanged once more. I will post a sketch showing how my car was assembled.

Roy, all the lead has been removed on my lock post. You are seeing some shiny remnants of lead, but the contours in my pictures are that of the steel.


First photo is my patch piece tacked in.


Rather than plug weld the piece in the same location as the factory spot welds, I decided the continuously edge weld the quarter patch to the lock post. Probably overkill, but this seals the pieces so no contamination can interfere with the lead applied later.



Inside of rear wheel well showing all the bends and patches. If you look really carefully you can see heat marks from my shrinking disk. If you look back at the before pictures, someone overstretched this area. Hammer/dolly/shrinking disk brought this area back smooth.



A tad more metal finishing needed near the concave curve. Also need to weld the top near the window.








Door gap is currently about 4.5mm. Lead will be re-applied here for a uniform 3mm gap and to smooth out the lock post shape.



Thanks for looking!

[John Pierce]

Tom,

Thanks for posting the close-ups of this complex area. They will definitely be quite useful when I get to this point.


JP

[JTR70]

Beautiful fabrication and repair as always Tom! Keep up the great work!
Justin

[tperazzo]

John and Justin, thank you. This website is a great resource and it's fun to contribute and help each other. This is my first 356 and without detailed forums like this one, I would be totally lost.

Below is a quick sketch of how my quarter panel was assembled to the lock post area. I'm not saying that this is how all cars were built, but I thought it might shed some more light on the subject.



One of the surprising things to me is that my car has a cavity between the two parts. My guess is that the factory chose this accordion shape for strength and adjustability when assembling these cars. My car probably needed the lock post pushed back a few millimeters for the door latch to work correctly, so the spot welder guy came along and left the cavity shown in my sketch. This cavity is not desirable for corrosion protection, although my car is so rusty it probably wouldn't have made a difference, ha ha.

I didn't have a good picture, but I sliced the quarter skin away to clean out the rust as best I could. I will inject epoxy primer or POR15 inside the flanges/cavity. Then I will rotate the car on the rotisserie and use compressed air to coat these accordion areas before seam sealer and undercoating is applied.

That procedure, along with my added welding to this area will take 100x longer than the factory spent on this area!

I hope this doesn't confuse the situation more.
Thanks,
Tom

[Phil Planck]

Thanks for making and posting that sketch Tom. I hace saved I to my Lock Pillar folder. That last double flange is missing on Foamcar. I have chosen to repair ala the Bruce Baker method. I also was wondering why all those bends. Strength? Even out the rusting around and up and down the car?

Phil

[tperazzo]

No problem Phil, we are all anxiously awaiting your pictures of this area.

Here's a picture of a nose patch that was done a few months ago.

Check out the 1" thick bondo held in place by the fog light bracket.


Patch made to fit existing contours.





Trimmed in.



Welded, but final bend yet to be formed.




Backside view showing penetration and heat affected zone.



Next time I'll show the patch ground flush and bent correctly.
Thanks again,
Tom

[JTR70]

Beautiful fabricated patch Tom! I've said it before but those TIG welds sure do lay out nice! How did you crown this patch to profile? On a block of wood, shot bag? Nice job as usual! Justin

[John Pierce]

Tom, it looks fabulous! Your TIG welds really shine. Not much grinding to do.

[tperazzo]

Thanks Justin! This car is peppered with patches now. One of these days I'll need to add them up. Somewhere around 50 is my WAG.

I decided to save the nose on this side although a few more patches are needed. One at the bumper hole and another where the fender brace meets the nose. Its strange that the original headlight bucket is solid, so I plan to use this original nose for reference when replacing the other side. See pics at bottom.

Thanks John, how is your new welder treating you? Inquiring minds want to know. And yes, not much grinding at all. Here's the patch all smoothed out. Yay!





Here's the other side which I'm not going to attempt to repair. A new half nose will be ordered soon.


Check out the headlight bucket installation. Ah....the tragedy.



As much as I want to cut it now, I'm going to wait to see the fit of the hood both before and after the nose replacement surgery.
Take care,
Tom

[Jack Staggs]

Tom, if you don't have your replacement 1/2 nose yet, I would suggest getting it before proceeding much further. I have noticed minor differences in various panels, particularly around the upper and lower grill openings. Since you are working on those areas, it will be easier to make them match before you are finished and have to re-do.

[tperazzo]

Good point Jack. Do you or anyone else have a preferred source for an accurate nose half?

My first thought is Sierra Madre because I can drive and pick it up fairly easily.

I've yet to buy a panel that fits, so I fully expect to "customize" this too.

Maybe that's why many replace the entire nose! I did notice that a complete nose is much more than two halves?????

Thanks for the comment.
Tom