You have a build thread going. Kept me up past my bedtime. Still waiting patiently for the T roadster.
I finished up the rear cab corners. They still need a little attention, and probably a bit of filler, but it's all good metal now. This little nightmare is why I chiseled off all the bondo and drilled out all the spot welds. There wasn't a chance in hell I was going to be able to pound out that crease. It's ready to go back together now. Old panel laying over top of the new one. I still have a bit of work on the bed side to do before doing the cut and weld thing. Needed to get everything straight first. I have all the waves and dents removed from this side now. I wouldn't call it metal finished at this point, but straight enough to weld the patch panel into position. Need to make a couple little patches for the wheel opening as well. Other than that, it has straightened up very nicely. The top two thirds is dead flat in one plane, and that is the part that had most of the damage.
It's been a couple months and there isn't a lot of visible progress, even though I have spent a ton of time on it. This side is now about 90% metal finished, just a couple more highs and lows to remove. I now have the box floor back flat again. There are still a ton of nicks and tiny dents that I may fill most of, but it will probably end up with box liner sprayed on the floor in the end. The floor is 16 gauge and I hammered on that ****er for weeks with a 2 1/2 lb hammer, going over and over it with various chisels and punches to restore the lines again. Huge job, but it turned out quite nice. A little filler on the welded areas and it will be just fine. I cut out all four corners of the bed cause some were rusty, and some were pretty badly bent. I ended up using 14 gauge for those 4 pieces cause it seems the 16 gauge I have on hand is actually 17 gauge. I can't help think with the price of steel these days they roll it to the thin side slightly. My 18 gauge sheet is almost 19 gauge also. Seeing as how the original corners were thick 16 gauge, I decided to go with 14 just because. The underside of everything will receive a coat of rust paint before I paint the good side. Both wheel tubs are now pretty much dent free as well. I was able to access most areas of them when I had the corners of the floor removed. Again, all 16 gauge and lots of hammering. I ran my small shrinking disc over the flatter areas to remove some of the stretched metal, and I was surprised to find the shrinking disc works very well on 16 gauge material. The inner box sides have all been fixed as well. I'll need a little filler here and there to fix nicks and gouges, but everything is pretty well back to where it was when new. The wheel tubs were in pretty tough shape before. The nose of the hood had half an inch of bondo just above the hood emblem. A big dent about the size of my fist. Half of it is under the inner brace, so I had to pull most of the dent. There will definitely be some filler here. Not deep, but enough to fill the irregularities that I don't feel like spending another day to fix. Just because. The front corner had a couple little dents that were full of old bondo. Pulled them out as well. This hole from and old mirror mount I'm guessing, and 4 holes in the front top from one of those old bolt on bug deflectors. Remember those? All 5 bolt holes were merely filled with bondo. Now welded up and metal finished properly, cause they are all where they can be readily accessed. This had to be clamped together and re-aligned and re welded. I thought this hood was in decent shape till I sanded all the bondo off it. I had to weld up a crack right above where the hinge bolts to the hood. I think perhaps this may have helped allow the hood sides to splay out past the cowl. In the pic above, you can see the extra brace I welded in place to keep the hood side from doing that again in the future. I hope. I made these up to weld in place for extra bracing. They are 14 gauge material. I used a ratchet strap to pull the hood side into alignment. Made a contour gauge from the cowl, and pulled the hood side in to match it, then weld the little brace in place. This is what I'm aiming for. Nice that the contour gauge fit both the driver and p***enger side cowl shape exactly. Notice in the pic below the bit of space under the contour gauge in the middle area? That fit nicely once this side of the hood was pulled in place with the ratchet strap. Here you can see the back side of the new brace, before I ground the uglies off it. And yes, there is lots of clearance for the spring. I am now pretty much wrapped up with patching metal and welding. I hope. I still have to metal finish much of the metal yet. It's straight enough now that I could skim it, but I'm a better metal finisher than a sculptor, so on with the ******* and dollies for a while yet.
Just a couple more pics. The right side of the hood is almost totally metal finished. I just have a few little areas to get a bit better yet. The rest of the hood should look like this side once I'm done with it. The good news is that this hood is in far better condition than the one I did for my Mercury truck. I could skim it like it is, but there are just too many sins that I need to fix first. A few hours with a ******* and dolly and it will make me smile. It's very satisfying work.
So serious metal work is going on here. Great photos and write-up on how you are making your panels. Keep the updates coming.
Time to update I guess. I have been pretty busy over the past few months dealing with a family problem so work on this has been rather slow. My son met an old high school sweetheart at the gas station, subsequently left his wife and kids for who I call Ms. Big, (big eyelashes, big lips, big ***s and a big problem with alcohol and cocaine). Been busy. I have mostly been working on this side of the box. I got all the dents out, and it's fairly straight at this point, but there is a ton of time spent on it since. Found a bunch more bondo with uglies underneath. There was some rust in the damaged areas and it just seemed easier to cut it all out and replace it. Getting all this back into the same place it used to be took a while. And then of course you find another spot that is just easier to replace than repair. I already did some welding on this and it still looks like dog****. The new piece roughed out. I don't have a pic of exactly where I am at right now, cause it's late and cold outside.
I did this little repair on both doors. I could probably have gotten the tig tip in there, but the mig did it just fine. I couldn't bear to not reinforce this area. I'm sure the only reason it was done this way from the factory was to facilitate stamping that step in the metal. I made up a couple pieces and plug welded them in place with a few more mig spots. It looks like **** but I'm sure it will hold up better than just welding up the cracks. I put the pieces in place, then scribed the slot for the window fuzzies trim piece. Punched it out with a Whitney punch, then filed the slot to match the original hole in the door. I need to do some final sanding there, cause it looks like dog**** right now. The nick in the pic above was from the drill bit when I drilled some plug welding holes. Again, looks like **** till I finish sand it all. I'm pretty sure it won't crack out there again. It's strong now, and you can't depress it down like original. It was a pain in the *** job, but worth doing as far as I'm concerned.
The Jalopy Journal
