Seat Anchor Repair

My driver seat anchors all looked bent, and when I tried to straighten this one it broke out. Here is the repair process.

Cut it out! I mean it!

Weld on the captive bolt to the patch.

Tack it in.

So tacky.

Weld it.

Grind it.

Check it. Done. Repeat.

Not exactly repeat, the others just needed the cracks repaired, just weld'em up.

Again.

All done, just need to paint it black.

Engine Bay Paint

 

A bit of a mess, this definitely needs work.

The right fender had some bad pitting, so it was filled in with JB Weld and sanded, so much sanding...

Oh yeah, more stuff in the way. Steering column needs to come out too.

Still needs some more sanding...

Finally, primer, progress, and more sanding...

Paint, and repeat for a total of three coats, equaling three 12oz cans of base coat.

Getting there, and no, I didn't forget the radiator panel, it will stay black. I don't like seeing the orange through the grill. When you paint your car, you too can have it your way.

I used BLVC16, Blaze color paint from Paint Scratch.

Here we finally are with the two part isocyanate laden clear coat applied. 

Now that it is dried it looks pretty good, very shinny. I went with this paint and top coat specifically because it doesn't need buffing. Not because I don't like buffing, even though I don't, but because it would be impossible to do it right in the engine bay will with all the contours. While smelly for two days while drying (don't worry I was wearing a mask as soon as I noticed that it was still off gassing), it pops all on its own. Now, I chose this picture because it has the trunk lid in view, in the same light, it doesn't match... I don't know if my new paint is too dark or the decade old paint was the wrong color, or if it just faded with time, but there you have it. I guess I will have to paint the whole car now. I knew this was coming, I just didn't want to think about it.

One final picture with the radiator panel painted, it really ties it all together.

Drivers Dogleg Panel

After completing the front section of the drives door sill, it was time to address the aft section and the blisters in the dogleg panel. A quick hit with the wire brush showed that there had been corrosion living here for a while!

Removing the dogleg reveled many holes, but they were confined to the aft eight inches of the sill panel.

After cutting off the bad sill panel, another hole was made to remove rust on the membrane panel. 

Here is the new piece welded in the membrane panel.

And here is the new sill panel installed.

The part that started this saga, there was a hole in the end cap, so a new one was welded in.

Fitting the ill fitting dogleg panel. Marking sections on the panel made it much easier to shape on the grinder, i.e. there is a rubbing between 4 and 6, grind a bit and recheck the fit. By this process the panel was perfectly fit in under an hour.

Then it was welded on, and the welds ground down, a nice fit. The second tip for fitting this panel would be to straighten or flatten the trailing edge so you can get the leading edge to fit properly, then after welding up to the wheel well corner, then you can just hammer the trailing edge around the wheel well corner and finish welding.

Radiator Duct Panel and Related Pains

This is the radiator duct panel, it's bent.

 

This is the front of the car without a radiator duct panel, and a bunch of other things, well pretty much everything!

The fenders are back on to help align everything.

A new tool! After making some jig fixtures, I used the new hydraulic puller to help fit the fenders and get the correct gap for the hood, things are starting to come together.

Duct panel getting fitted.

Hood aligned. If a hover craft were a thing, I would leave it just like this.

Here is the bonnet lock platform in place after welding, it is maintaining the hood width gap.

Now the duct panel gets welded in. The end. This may look simple, but it was much more complicated than even the sill panels because there were so many critical panels to align. The platform brace still needs to be installed, but that can wait.

 

Side Marker Delete

After removing the side marker light and the fender from the car,  I cut out a quarter size plug and welded it in from the back of the fender.

Then I filled in the screw holes with the MIG welder.

Finally a little grinding and the panel is smooth again. I still have to do the rear lights as well.

 

Driver Side Door Sill Repairs

 

This isn't looking too bad...

While there was rust in the castle rail box section, it was only at the very front of the panel.   

So maybe there is a little more rust in here.

 

More rust to cut out then new metal going back in, this is an extension of the floorboard inside the car.

I had to make the the front section of the castle rail. I didn't feel like buying a whole one just to use six inches of it.

Same with the membrane, a small sheet of 16 gauge steel is $10, the whole panel is $87. I added the stiffening triangles with weld beads, probably overkill. 

Membrane primed with weld through primer, new sill trimmed.

Panels installed.

Welds ground down, all good, will finish off with some POR-15 and then put the new splash panel on. The fender was not rusted through on this side making my life much easier. The driver side repair took about three days, but some of that was waiting for 16 gauge steel. The passenger side repair took three weeks!

Front Valance Panel

So, the front valance panel was all bent up and was brazed to the radiator base panel, there was a lot of bondo to boot.

Step one, cut off the offending portions...

Step two cut new steel to fit.

And tack weld it on.

Connect the dots.

Grind it smooth. There is still a lot of shaping that needs to be done with this, but I will get to that when I start the body work.