[dataway]

Nice work. I found the area over in the corner on the inside to be the biggest challenge. Several pieces of sheet metal all join in that area. You end up just kind of welding them all together.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by dataway

Nice work. I found the area over in the corner on the inside to be the biggest challenge. Several pieces of sheet metal all join in that area. You end up just kind of welding them all together.

Thanks.
Yes it gets a little complicated in that area. I put it back as close as I could get it to the way it was originally. I'm still waiting on the new firewall body mount bracket to get here.

Today, I finished repairing a couple of other floor issues.
Had some swiss cheese here that needed addressing:



I cut it all out and welded in a patch.







And this area:







Both repairs from underneath:





That is all the patching the floor will require. However, I am going to zap a little weld into several of the rust pockmarks that are left. I've done a few already.

[roger1]

I got the first rear wheel well patch done. This is the front of the passenger side. I decided there wasn't a reason to not make the patch span where the outer and inner wheelhouses come together.





Did a poking on this rusted place on the inner wheelhouse. It's rusted like this on the driver side too but not as bad as this side. I'll tackle this next. Not sure why these areas are prone to rust.



I received the body mount frame bracket today and started messing with it. I had to do some modifications to the radius on the left at both the top and bottom as well as some re-shaping the bottom left flange to get it to fit right. If mounted as it was out of the box, the body mount points would have been almost a half inch too low. Glad I kept the original bracket for me to be able to check this. What a mess up that would have been to not have that be correct.
This part was made by Dynacorn.



This is just mocked up right now. I had to cut a little of the edge flange in order to change the radius areas and I will need to take it back off to weld it up before mounting the bracket permanently.

[north]

The rust in the front of the rear wheelhouses is a convertible thing. The plastic gutter that catches the rain that gets past the top at the pinch weld dumps the water forward right onto the front of the wheelhouse so it can drain into the rocker which ends right there..

[roger1]

I finished installing the firewall body mount bracket. After welding and finishing I mixed up some epoxy primer, used a brush and let it seep down into the flanges.



I then moved to the d/s rear wheelwell area and repaired the front lower area rust holes. This was a little worse than the other side and I had to do it in 2 patches. This is the first one and it was cut from the new outer wheelhouse panel.



Fabricated the second patch and welded in:



Done:



After studying the rust I could see on the back side of the inner wheelhouse, I made this cut. Fixing this will be more involved than I first estimated.





At the top you can see the foam type caulk that the factory used. Water leaked into it from above. Some of this is 3 layers. The floor flange is in between some bracketing and the inner wheelhouse.

Caulk removed exposing more metal damage. Some rust goes into the trunk floor area a little.



I cut off the rest of the rusted trunk floor flange and the rust area that went into the the trunk. I'm getting the good metal cleaned up so I will be able to fabricate new metal and weld in. A little more cleanup to do but I've got most of it done.





The rear bracket has some rust holes in one little area but I will be able to repair those in place. I'll use copper bar under the holes so I can weld them up easier. Here's a photo from inside the trunk:



I'm going to have these same issues on the passenger side but I don't think it is quite as bad as this side. I see a flaw in the factory caulking job already. Not only is this foam caulk not good quality, they don't do a very good job of putting it in either.

[dataway]

Let us know how the copper backing bar works. I just bought a chunk of copper for that purpose. In all my years of welding I've never used one.

A little tip for starting a patch weld .... ever notice how the initial welds are a bit tall and lumpy? I'll use a propane torch and warm the area a bit first, helps the welds lay down flatter as opposed to starting on a cold panel. Only really necessary in my shop during the winter when the shop is around 50 degrees. Seems to help as the welder is turned down low as to not punch through the metal, which can make the welds kind of "tall" until the whole panel gets warmed up.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by dataway

Let us know how the copper backing bar works. I just bought a chunk of copper for that purpose. In all my years of welding I've never used one.

Glad you asked as that will be good to show here. As you can see by the looks of these 3 small pieces of 1/8" copper bar look, I've used them many times.



Copper in place and ready for first weld:



First weld:



After a few iterations of moving the copper bar along and welding, here it is all welded and ready to be finished off:



Finished off using an 80 grit Roloc sanding disc. I also used a carbide burr to even out where I couldn't reach with the Roloc.



Also dressed up the underneath side of the bracket:

[dataway]

Oh jeez, that works pretty nice. Certainly better than running a mile of wire through the holes, and blowing a dozen more open, before getting them closed up.

Ever try spraying the copper with anti-splatter before using them?

I've got a couple of spots where the backing bar should come in very handy.

Thanks

[roger1]

Originally Posted by dataway

Ever try spraying the copper with anti-splatter before using them?

I haven't heard of an anti-splatter spray before. But I guess I don't see a need for improvement. The bars do get kind of black but it doesn't affect the way they work.
And btw, your tip about warming panels before welding sounded interesting but I guess down here in Texas it's not really an issue. It would be really rare for my shop to reach 50 degrees in the winter and my heaters will warm it up into the 60s in a very short time.

[dataway]

If doing tacks adjacent to each other it's not an issue after a couple of tacks have heated up the panel. But if you have pin holes to fill, heating up the area to a couple hundred degrees makes that one spot weld lay down a lot flatter.

The spray would mainly just help to keep the steel from attaching to the copper, same as it does for copper MIG nozzles and tips.

Just used a copper bar last night, putting in a big patch on my floor board, worked well for an area that was thin and would have been a real pain to slowly build up with wire. Held it in place with one hand, welded with the other.

Out of my four welding machines ... the 30 year old little Lincoln MIG with .023 is still the best for this kind of work, that machine just won't quit.

Passenger side done, working on the driver side now.

[Bill Eveland]

Great work, as far as the copper goes ive used some 3/4" copper pipe also, ill hammer down one end so its flat and the other half a handle to hold it . Or I suppose you could do that to whatever length piece you needed and clamp it in.

[dataway]

Roger ... looks like you might be using straight CO2 for your welding gas. If so, you might want to consider trying an Argon/CO2 mix in the next bottle. Typically it welds better than straight CO2, flatter, less splatter, but is more expensive. Lincoln welders usually have the adjusted settings in the chart.

[roger1]

I'm using 75/25 and it's all I've ever used. My welder is a Lincoln SP-135 Plus that I bought about 15 years ago just for body sheetmetal. I've used the heck out of it.
My welder has since been updated to a newer model number called the Power Mig 140C.

[dataway]

SP is an excellent machine for sheet metal work. Yep, 75/25 is the good stuff.

How do you like the Power Mig? I've been thinking about upgrading myself, I'm sure they've improved the small machines since I bought the old SP100.

[roger1]

I don't have the Power Mig. I was just saying mine has been discontinued and Lincoln superceded it with the 140C. My SP-135 Plus still works great.

[roger1]

It took me a while to make and weld in all the patches I needed. The first one was the small area into the trunk floor:





Next was the floor flange that I did in 2 pieces. First piece:



And 2nd:



Flange pieces welded in and finished off:



Then finally, the wheelhouse panel. I also did this in 2 pieces.
Both welded welded in:



And all finished:





I guess I'll tackle this same area on the other side next.

[dataway]

Very nice!
Whatcha got there for grinding, is that a Roloc with a flap wheel? Also, what are you using for cutting, a air-saw or cut-off wheel?

[roger1]

It is. I just bought a 10 pack of them from AutoBodyNow last week just to try them out.
I kind of like them and just ordered 2 more 10 packs. They do last longer than standard 2" discs and you get the benefit of using the edges as they round out some after using them for a bit.

For cutting, I do use cut-off discs. I've been buying the 3" stainless cutting discs from Roark Supply. The ones for stainless last longer.
This is a item you do not want to buy at Harbor Freight. Their discs are terrible and downright dangerous.

[roger1]

I started digging foam caulk in the trunk area out. Take a look at what I found here after removing caulk in the corner:



This separation and the splits had to have been this way when it left the factory and they just filled it all with the crappy caulk. Looks to me like the machine they used to bend and join the panels together splits them and they just fill with caulk and called it good.

The other side which isn't rusted has splits too but fit somewhat better. This is what it looked like there after removing the caulk:



I squared up the big rust hole to see what all I was going to have to do to repair it.:



It's interesting what the factory does here. There's a vertical flange that's part of the rear tail light panel that serves no purpose. It's not attached to anything and there is a gap between it and the quarter panel. They just filled that gap with foam caulk that traps moisture and promotes the rusting.
Here's a photo from the inside on the non-rusted one on the other side after I dug out all the foam caulk:



Next I cut off what was left of the flange with no purpose and I could see that the bottom part of the quarter that wraps under had to be cut out. I was hoping that wouldn't be the case but it was too far gone. I drilled out the spot welds and removed it.





I'll weld up the folds and splits when I restore this area. I guess I'll finish this process up before going to the p/s inner wheelhouse issue.

It does look like it will be just as bad as the other side was. I removed the caulk from above and see the rust in the floor just about the same and a rust hole in the brace on the underneath side.

[68ragtop]

Roger, do you have a finger style mini belt sander? Just curious because they are one of those tools that you cannot live without in fabrication once you have one.

I got one from a good friend & it quickly became one of my favorite tools