My Olds was showing signs of rust coming out under the paint. the rear quarters behind the door were not looking good and then a bubble started to come through on the door. I nursed the thing along for another year or two and decided to take some time off in November to try and sort it out. Problem I have with this car is it is my every day driver. So anything I do that takes more than 2 days must be well planned and have contingencies for stuff ups or unforeseen issues. I got the paint colour matched prior to pulling it down and also made a template of the body curve to get some steel rolled as a patch panel. Body work is my least desirable car related job. I can do it, but I know I'm not that good at it. Anyway. to get it done in the 10 days I had and to a level I was happy with I knew I'd have to tackle it myself. Anyway I live in Melbourne on a standard house block and while thats all good and I have shed space, I decided to do this up the farm where space wasn't an issue nor was making noise to 1-2 am. which we did for about 10 days straight. we worked from about 7-8 through to after midnight all nights. but it was worth it in the end. anyway. photos. everyone loves photos... Before. Pull the interior out and start stripping My father was helping me 'swifty' here on the HAMB and we started out with paint stripper. this was abandoned as a joke after it took all morning to get to this stage on a door alone. So we went for stripper discs on a grinder to start , the body had many layers and it was hard going. it seems there were some less than desirable fixes on the car, as you expect, however while I knew there was some bad stuff there I found some that was worse than I thought and some that wasn't as bad as I expected. the p*** side was really full of bog and the dog leg nearly non existent. this worried me. drives side First cut has to start somewhere... so may as well make it a big one. inner sill repair I didn't take as many photos of the process on the p*** side more on the drivers side. marking out where I was going to cut to. previous quality repair
Right about now I was lucky that a mate turned up to have a look, he knew I was going to be up and about doing this and he’s a qualified welder, I was lucky enough that over the next few days he was in and out and helped. He also welded in the patches as he’s much better than I am at this stuff. I was planning on doing it, but was more than happy to leave it to him. He has nearly completed a m***ive project of rust repair on a ’55 buick so he was more than familiar with this stuff. He kept saying how good mine was, while I kept looking at it thinking I had bitten off more than I can chew. As we were working together on the p***. Side I didn’t take too many photos of that side. He left late and the next day I started on my own on the drivers side so I took more photos of that. Roughed in on the p*** side. These patch panels went on and off to may times to count. Starting mocking up on the p*** side The hoist is a huge help with this work. Getting the car to a height that’s easy to work on. Time to trim the patch panel. I got the sheety place to make a 8x4 patch. I stuffed up on the first one and then redid a template, they put a crease in that one so it had to be redone again. This of course ate into my time as they are a good half an hour away, so backwards and forwards to Bendigo usually meant the morning lost in getting supplies. Cleco’s were used to hold things in place, they made it easier and also made sure that the panel went back in the same spot everytime. Neil doing some final welding on the inner repairs. The drivers side patch tacked in.
Prep for paint, using a stripper disc on a buff. Masked and ready. Sealer on. Back together and on the road. So really to anyone looking at the car would think it looks like a pile of **** with dents and rust repairs showing. However I’m happy as what I see I know is good. Previously I was nervous as to what was under the paint. Now I know it’s all good as such. So next phase will be get the dents beat out and then ready for paint. Being a daily driver this might not happen for a while. I didn’t take photos of it, but Swifty has a body guy come once a week to work on his coupe and he helped out one night and that dog leg on the p*** side, he hand made out of the patch I had got rolled. I didn’t even know he had done it but man was it a relief as I wasn’t sure what was going to happen there and it scared me some. But in the end, I met my deadline and got the car back on the road for family service and now I can just work on the small things as I go along and know that the major rust repair is done and now it’s one dent at a time until it’s ready for paint. nothing special here but thought I would share.
Nice olds.......I've sold cars before because I didn't want to weld out in the middle of huge panels like a 55 Olds quarter panel....I see some warpage to repair and if you can do the repairs, good on ya! I bought my parent's 55 super 88 in 1967.....it was a dependable old war horse 'till the slant-pan hydro began to slip going into 3rd gear...traded it in on a 57 Pontiac in '68.
If you think yours was bad you should of seen the 55 super 88 convertible I had years ago,it was bad enough that it was more then my skills could handle at that time.
Rocky, yes some warpage on both sides, but that can be dealt with. it won't move any more unlike the rust that would slowly be eating the car away. I could have tackled each area on it's own over time but didn't want to. I didn't want to be driving a car around that would be all spotty and look like cop bait. I like this car, but it's not the roadster or the Tudor, so I also want to spend as little time and money on it as I have to, as that stops either being spent on hot rods.
The Jalopy Journal
