Im all for it, with proper adhesive and procedure. On a vintage car expect to catch **** from everyone for doing it. As well as when its time to sell. Consider its meant for full panel replacement, not patches. If you glued a seam in the middle of a quarter panel, I would expect it to "shadow" anytime the temperature changed even with a perfect paintjob. My first experience with panel bond was watching a chrysler certified collision repair guy at a dealership glue a bedside on a 1 year old Ram. Chrysler approved/ recommended procedure. He was a friend, called me up, and said. "Come watch this ****, you wont believe it" My next experience with panel bond was working in a GM stamping plant where it was pumped from 55 gallon drums thru robot heads into some area on almost every welded ***embly. Combo of panel bond and spot welds. As we did destructive weld test for quality, the panel bond areas would tear the sheetmetal before the glue. Thats fresh glue, whats it do after 20 years was always my concern.
Look at it from the buyers perspective......you slide under the 55 Chevy that someone is asking 35,000 for,and you see the floor pans are replaced.Do you want to see well done **** welding thats ground smooth,or do you accept the 1/2 inch over lap on glued in panels? Do you pay REAL 55 Chevy money for this level of work,or do you make it a talking point?
I had to check out the SPRs. I had no idea about them until now. I'm not a body guy but I guess I should have guessed that they do exist. It only makes sense. But I didn't even own a computer until I was 34 years old...Shows how far behind I am on technology. I can see using the bonding agent and then using the SPRs. It seems a lot easier than welding and less time consuming. I can also see using SPRs and then using joint sealer. I learned something today. THANKS! Here is a video I found on you tube at a SEMA event, demonstrating the SPRs for those of us who are curious about it.
I did the gm lumina plastic van repair cl*** back in the day. An approved repair was a qtr section. It shadowed every time. I’m sure it was plenty strong. BMW has an approved rail, rocker and sail panel adhesive **** joint repair. It’s basically a no weld qtr replacement. But uses SPR/rivets with the adhesives. It utilized a BMW provided glue in sleeve. I wonder how the joint looks after a few months as far as shadowing. GM has a no weld rail replacement with adhesives and rivets. Resale was mentioned. I recently considered a project car for my youngest, the roof, qtrs, and rear body was glued. Had a couple joint welds. I walked away.
Those guns can cost over 6k The process is impressive. This is also how you attach an aluminum skin to a steel shell. Or vice versa. The adhesive also protects against galvanic corrosion. I could definitely see using this in some of our applications. I’ve ***embled a couple of brookville bodies. I’m not glueing one with a few tubes of panel bond though and pat myself on the back.
The difference between your old cars and the late model ones is, in my opinion, the new cars often have aluminum frontclips glued and riveted to a steel p***enger compartment structure that is covered up with aluminum or carbon fiber roof panels or aluminum quarters and since there´s no way to weld these materials, the proper way to fix them is to glue them back together. But he proper way to fix our old steel body stuff is to cut the rustholes out and weld new sheetmetal back in a manner it looks like it´s never been messed with... At least that´s what I´m trying to achieve , but sometimes my skillset is not good enough
even if it "works just fine" gluing parts in an old car is a half ***ed way to do it. better than pop rivets, sheet metal screws and street signs, but just not how things should be done.
How much money does it cost to fill the roof on a 34 Ford sedan using the adhesive and bondo method? Now how much does it cost to weld in a steel roof insert after said adhesive job fails and the bondo starts cracking? I don't know but I know someone who does and I know he would have some input on this thread and it wouldn't be nicely worded!
I just might try it for the roof panel on my 27 Coupe when I get the chance. Think it'll be ok to do? What's the cost of adhesive? Is it expensive? Cost worthy?
Not sure yet. So far this is an after thought. It just seems easier to do. I'm not a great welder. I only pretend to know what I'm doing when people are around.
One of the nicest 27 coupe roofs I have seen was a steel top made from the roof of a 60-ish Chevy pick up roof.That truck cab had a small rear over hang lip on the roof with a dip stamped in it.The owner took one or two,and made his roof.I for get if he put the recessed dip at the front,or back on the coupe,but it looked very nice,and different.
Now that’s just cool as hell! But it’s use would be limited to where you could get the tool around an edge, on stuff like floor pans it would be useless. I can’t even see using it on patch panels except maybe on each end. I guess if you were glueing on a patch, you could put a rivet on each end to hold it in place while the glue dried. I wonder if it comes in a blind rivet arrangement. Guess I’ll just stick to welding. If it’s ugly, I can always grind it or cover it up....
The car companies also allow the use of pop rivets where the SPR tool can’t reach. But I’m with ya. I like to weld.
It is possible. So lets take a pool. Would you p*** on a glued in floor in a car you are thinking about buying. A low budget build, maybe yes. But not a high dollar build. So the seats are bolted in, right. And the panel is glued in. So what about hitting someone head on doing 60 miles an hour. Is it gonna hold. You have 4 bolts and the force of a seat pulling. Then add the force of seatbelts pulling also. What would make you fell safer.
I guess I'm not against glue, it's impressive stuff and I wouldn't worry about it failing. But I have fixed a lot of rusty cars, and put a lot of floor pans in, and I have never once come across a car I could have glued in floors. Every car I cut apart needs **** welds somewhere, or has absolutely no areas to overlap where glued. I ***ume there is a minimum amount of overlap to get a good strong seam? I've never had that. Maybe for some small patch jobs, but small jobs are easy to weld, and a big overlap of a small patch is going to look like ****. I suppose if you had a car that needed full pans, but all of the substructure was good and there was at least an inch of solid metal all the way around the outside where the pan would drop in, it would work excellent, but my cars never seem to rot out so conveniently.
If you hit someone head on at 60 mph, it probably won't matter if the floor pan stayed put or not, your probably dead anyway. But the results of a crash and a bonded floor pan is a good point. Research has proven that the glued/bonded seam, if done correctly, is as strong or stronger then a welded joint when pulled away from each other. The shear strength is the issue with a bonded joint, a bonded joint tends to separate at the bond, or tear the metal just beyond the seam when a side pull is involved, where a welded seam tends to flex and bend with the surrounding metal. That is why nearly all bonded seams are also intended to have either welding, screws, or rivets in addition to the bonding. Personally, I prefer welding, but there are places where bonding the metal might be OK, especially if screws, rivets, or a few tack welds can be included. Any structural location would not be OK. Gene
For what it's worth, The Judge had a LOT of undercoating under the floor.. not wanting to start a fire, I decided to get a case of 3M 5200 (I think that's what it was), bought a drill driven pop riveter (one of the coolest tools I own), and 1,000 1/8" aluminum pop rivets I only had about 20 left by the time I completed the floors... Including the trunk floor...so, all panels overlapped and are glued.. even built the transmission cover area with probably 10 or more pieces.. looked like **** but guess what... sound deadener, padding, and carpet cures all ugly floors.. worked GREAT !!
Have been bonding in roof top filler panels and butchered dash repair panels for over 20 years with no problems and no "shadows". A bit more time and work but I draw the pieces tight together with screws till the bond squishes out all along the seam to weatherproof it and then replace the screws one at a time with screws cut part way through so they twist off when tightened. This gives a mechanical bond along with the adhesive one. I use the aircraft rivet template to give a uniform criss cross screw pattern. Have never done a floor but would do so on a body on frame car and think about it for a while before doing a unibody floor.
When working on cars from the ‘50s and older, if you do work that is likely to last at least 20 years, then you are ahead of the game. The manufacturers didn’t build them to last that long. So in my opinion, glue away!
http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/booklets/55smri/index.html Regular polyester "fibergl***" resin is not suitable for bonding to steel. http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/booklets/55smri/55smri01.html How strong ? http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/booklets/55smri/55smri03.html There are some "repairs"in that 1955 Publication that almost certainly would have a life span no more than 5-10 years.
When considering OE procedures, remember they are working against a "design life". Typically 7-10 years, certainly not 50. I remember being at an auto show, a lot of years ago, and looking at a Seville with the "new" Northstar. I mentioned to the salesman that it looked like it would be an expensive job to replace the rear spark plugs. He replied "They're designed to last 100,000 miles, and we don't sell used cars"
The Jalopy Journal
