I had done a thread previously on a roof repair (here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=337728 ) and got an email asking questions, p***ing pictures back and forth, and I finally realized by the email address that this guy did screen printing. Well, me and the wife had been talking about shop shirts, and one thing led to another and a barter was struck: So now I was on the hook, and had to produce some metal parts. May as well do another tech article while we're at it. Just to show where we are working, the Vanna White display model will show with the red outline the area in need of repair, just above the door: This diagram shows a rough comparison between the area above the door and that of the area above the window on a wagon: The owner said the roof was loose from above the door frame. Sounds like quite a bit of rust, and likely the drip rail had separated from the structural boxing. Here's what the UPS truck delivered: Back side shows most of the drip rail "welding flange" rusted away.... And here's the actual car from where it all came from.... (pretty good view of the headliner bows) It looks like we can reuse the lower boxing, which also has the channel for the upholstery tack strip. The upper boxing is a bit different here as it also makes up part of the door opening. Due to the close proximity of some of the reverse bends, and working within the limitations of one's machinery, it looks like this will need to be made in multiple pieces and then welded together. The front edge of this piece tapers off considerably, and some of it can be seen here on the display sample (once the lead has been removed) More intricate shapes to contend with: After smacking it around for a while with a hammer, it's starting to take shape. The front edge which rests above the windshield pillar really needs to be fitted to the car, so some relief cuts are made and final welding will be done at installation. In looking at the both these roof repairs that I have dealt with, they both had damage in the immediate vicinity of a roof structural crossmember, and both had rust holes noticeable on the outside, well above the drip rail, with no damage on the outside to the drip rail. The only source I can come up with, is that condensation formed inside the roof and the crossmembers acted as a gutter to channel the moisture to the top area of the structural boxing that surrounds the perimeter of the roof. Moving on the section B, here is a bit better profile of the bends. The ends are cleaned of sharpie (poor man's ****m), clamped together, and welded.
Insure you have full weld penetration on the back side: The welds are dressed, and the new AB is aligned with the original to transpose more details: Now to show the formation of the dimples. Once again, use what you have available, but here is a good use for old bed frame angles. Cut to size, weld together, and weld another strip around the top edge. This will allow more surface area as we radius the inside to prevent cuts in the metal. Don't forget a strip of metal across the open side to keep it from spreading.. The top edge gets trimmed down to size, our hammering will go easier without all that excess in the way. I have a couple different sized "anvil punches" that I have formed radius ends on, we'll use the large one initially, and a smaller to fine tune the shape afterwards. With the dimple formation, we are actually shrinking the overall length of the part in this area, as can be seen by the distortion in the top flange: Some of this will be removed when we bend the offset in the flange, but in the end, it will need some stretching in both areas after the forming is complete, in order to restore the proper length to the part. A comparison to the original, and a test fit:
part C bent up and fitted. Here's where we need to reform the brake bend as the original part has a slightly different offset here. Be sure to mark both sides where the new bend needs to be.... Find an appropriate anvil. 3/4" steel works well .....and here is what you do when you mis-calculated a measurement...... On to part D.... ...requires reforming as the last piece did......
Test fit and trimmed: Now that the upper structural boxing is all in one piece, it's time to check it's contour to that of the car to see if we need to do any shrinking to better match the radius along the drip rail above the door. There is a radius along the top of the door, and it wraps around a bit sharper about a foot from the windshield: This would be a good place to use the body sweeps, (radius gauges) but you could easily accoplish the same thing by cutting a pattern to match. Now to check the radius: Now to align the new panel with the old, so we can mark the transition between the two different radiuses (radii). Now to check what we have on the new piece:
Here we'll use heating with the acetylene torch and cooling with water to provide some shrinking. This is easily accomplished by heating a VEE pattern, the more shrink needed, the wider the VEE. The bottom edge also needed quite a bit more shrinking than the top. Due to all the patterns we hammered into the top, it had already shrunk some, so the bottom needed to catch up. After all the shrinking in various locations, here's the results: This should get it quite a bit closer for a relatively painless install. It looks like we could have gone just a little more, but the spot welds along the top and bottom inside edges should cause just enough shrinking to provide the last bit needed. Moving on to the next piece, time to form a drip rail. The Lockformer dies I have for the Lennox seem to do the best job of forming a hem, so they were put to use. Then the tail is trimmed off...... Then we run it through the bead roller to hem the edge good and flat... ....followed by a beading die to add a slight crown to the face of the drip rail. A combination of the tipping wheel and the apron brake were used to fold up the face of the drip rail... ...and the apron brake was used for the final bend. As I don't have a 4' wide shear (yet) we used the slitting dies in the bead roller to trim the width of the flange. Next, to make up a die to form the roof repair panel in the Lennox. But first, a profile template.....
There goes the 3/4" steel anvil...... A sample piece of 19 ga is run through and test fit alongside the "model" car..... It's real close, but I want to tweak the dies to see if I can get it a little closer.... The repair panel came out much better this time..... It's a bit taller than the red "sample" I was sent, but that should give plenty of trim room. Now to get this stuff boxed up and on its way!
WOW!!!! I once had a '65 Chevy van that had a rusted out roof just like this. At one point I thought I would try to repair the mess and now I'm glad I didn't try - that's a LOT of work, and my work can't begin to compare to yours. Looks great, and thanks for taking so many pictures. That really helps to explain what you're doing.
Just about done with the repair kit after this weekend. Still needed a patch to cover this gaping hole..... ....so I thought I'd see what I could come up with using a tape pattern... And with some ***istance from an 8 year old Vanna White who was helping in the shop today.... After much work with the shrinking thumbnail dies, doming dies, the home made roof patch panel dies, a shot bag and a couple hammers, it got real close....this may just work yet... The other area needing attention, as my last drip rail was a bit wide for the application, I would need to fab up another. I always try to improve the "methods to my madness" and today was no exception. In previous versions of the drip rail, I formed the initial shape with a lockformer tooling and used the fence adjusted all the way against the lower die to minimize the folded tail. What seemed to take the majority of the time in fabrication was t******* the excess from the tail before the edge could be hemmed flat. This time I would try to speed up the process by eliminating the need for t******* the tail. An 1/8 thick piece of angle was clamped on the fence to the side of the lower die. The result: This looks like it will do the trick, resulting in a much cleaner edge inside the drip rail and quite shorter fabrication time. Looks like it will fit just fine. I guess the lesson to take from this, no matter how well something works/fits, never stop trying to improve the process.
Took the roof patch to work today and knocked off some of the dust from their english wheel. (one of these days I need to buy my own!) I still need to wheel it again tomorrow for a bit more crown on the side area, but it sure did a nice job on all the hammer marks I had in there.... Get that done and tweak the welding flange a bit and this thing is ready to go!
this stuff never gets old. only gets better if you buy "8 year old vanna white" a video camera and let her shoot the repairs in edited videos. i have ***isted in replacing a roof and they take a fair amount of "tweaking" to fit correctly.
Very nice work! I'm taking notes as you move along with your project. I've discovered that my wagon has the same hidden rust spots as well. I wouldnt have known how to go about it if it werent for your detailed photos and type of tools your having to tweak to fix the drip rail areas. Curious on how your going to make a new piece for the pitted curved area below the drip rail in this photo. The one on mine rusted away!
Thanks for the comments, guys! Dave, sorry to hear about your grandmother, I had read her obituary a couple weeks ago and didn't put two and two together. Holler next time you're in town. Herdez, the owner already obtained that part from a donor car, he lives in Katy TX. I made the roof piece in case he had to destroy his roof skin to get to the drip rail and other structural stuff in welding things back together. (Also, don't miss the link in the first post, it may cover some other areas for your roof repair) We did have some similar, although not as extensive, rust issues on the other "sample" wagon I have in the shop. We happened across an NOS quarter for a 4 door wagon that addressed all the problem areas we had, so that is being grafted on now. **** welded this time to eliminate the leaded seams and moiture (rust) traps from any pinch welded flanges:
So how many shirts did you get in this "barter" deal, in exchange for what you've done to make this incredible repair kit? I mean, unless you got a bunch of them, you got the short end of the deal. Hell, a few years ago I had a screen printer set up and print our logo on a dozen shirts for less than $100. You got great skills, I'm envious!
Thanks for the comments guys. Ebbs, It was many dozen, and two orders of many dozen, so far. I'm real happy with the deal, hope he is as well. We'll find out once he starts putting parts back together. He did say the piece over the door fit like a glove. The roof patch should be delivered today.
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