Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Rebuilding the Bad Area

Dateline – May 1 – 12 – One of the worst surprises on this car was the condition of the back right scuttle just inboard of the right gas filler. I’ve posted before about the condition before Well, now it is the time to attack the problem.

First, I had to create the sheet metal replacements. This required creating paper templates, cutting, bending and fitting eight pieces of 18 gauge sheet metal. This took a lot of patience and a lot of time! This is also where the Shrinker/Stretcher came into real play. I was able to create the pieces that would become the new rear window frame, and the back trunk edge with these tools. Pretty fun to use too!




After I got the pieces fabricated, I started the assembly process by prepping the exiting body. There were some holes that needed to be welded closed first, so I took care of that. Then I started assembly. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:















You will notice in the following pictures that the upper window frame is in and I built up a fillet to match the shape of the body. Again, not the best welding, but this will be covered in a thin coat of body filler, so it will look fine when done.