rust repair

[John ED Renstrom]

a nasty thought but for those of us living in the winter belt a necessary skill. I thought maybe you would be interested in seeing how I normally do this kind of thing. it will get long as it has a number of pictures and I can only post 10 at a time. nothing here is to cast doubt on someone else's work we don't know what or if they charged for it what the owners wanted at the time nor do we know how long this old repair lasted. before it failed. we only know it needed redone and I'm doing it differently they they did.. so the first this we do is. check things over notice the bad places and expose the damage

 

[John ED Renstrom]

that being done I will say I have never seen a tin can be used for backup before but it worked. the damage was from the wheel well to the rear bumper. so the only thing to do is cut your hole up to were you have solid metal and replace. we don't have a handy molding to hide the seam under so it will be a lap joint. our next problem will be to repair the inner panels first. we don't do that this repair is not going to last long

 

[John ED Renstrom]

with panels sometimes 3 or 4 layers thick and rust in between the only way to remove it and retain your shape is to heat it cherry red. cherry red the rust is dead is the motto. in the last set, you saw how we cleaned out the rust from the wheel well but still had enough heaver metal to keep our form. you notice I using brass. at this point, wire feed will not work on things this thin and this rusty. by torching you do two things you control your heat and you revile any weak places fast. Sometimes what looks like just surface rust is a little more than you think

 

[John ED Renstrom]

once we have the inner structure we can get out step on the car to make out panels ever. then it's bend up the replacement panel. yes, I bent this one by hand with a 1 1/2-inch angle iron and the floor. my brake is only 20 inches wide. normally you would only tack one end but this was not a normal repair. the void is boxed and I needed better control over it so one end than the other. you can see how it curled in, which is good Bringing it out is a lot easier the pushing it back in. now at this point, a modern man would drill small holes in the outer panel. jack the panel out to contour and with the wire feed spot weld the two together be done in 10 minutes. but with my pacemaker in place, this option is not allowed for me. glad it was on the 64. so we will do it the old-fashioned way

 

[John ED Renstrom]

we will use the spot weld cuter to make 3/8 inch holes in the outer skin they brass in every other hole readjusting the jack and bracing as necessary. we can use the 2x4 we jacked the panel out with as a dolly to shrink agents keeping this where they need to be. this will give us a smooth surface and only need to use a little filler to hide the seam. shop time to this point is only about 12 hr. As the car has been painted twice we will strip the panel before we repaint.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

we will clean up all the joints and the flux from the brass rod. before putting filler on. the back side will get a brushed-on layer of rusty metal primer. I find the oil base paint where you just need protection works well. prime, seal the seams brush on some black, and let them get dirty. a lot more than they did in the factory. hope you enjoyed the last 3-4 afternoons in the shop come back again and bring beer.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

so after filling this is what we end up with

 

[Jean-Marc Dugas]

I wish we were closer. It would be like that little kid that hangs out of the shop all the time...

 

[John ED Renstrom]

You would get put to work. Always us a third hand in this place.