The Bluesmobile

Welp, this is the best I'm going to get it I believe. The seam is not as bad as it looks. Its flush with the surrounding metal, and solid. I still have a pin hole to fill, and a couple small spots to grind down. Also wanna run a couple tacks along the backside, to be double sure its solid, and not gonna crack/fall apart from road vibration when shes back on the road. Then a bit of filler, and good to go.




Took the wire wheel to the surface rust, then a little primer.





Need to start on another panel to keep my interest up lol. Not sure what to do next.. Either the wheel well, or the few holes along the wheel arch in the quarter.

Found these bad boys in the smoke shop today, had to grab em!! Got one up on the wall. Need to find a spot for the other.

Edit- might help if I included the picture ehh??
 
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Spent the afternoon cutting out what was left of the outer wheel well. Now that the bulk of it is out of the way, can clean the cut line up. Damn I hat rust!!! The inner is still somewhat solid, except for the bottoms, and one corner.






After that, removed the paint, and bondo around the wheel lip. I have a couple holes to attend too.






I do have one for you guys with experience. This part kinda scares me. How should I go about it? The dog leg, where it meets the rocker panel. Should I brace the door frame opening, or do you think it will be alright? Just peal the overlapping panel back? I'm afraid I mostly of not being able to make the new panel fit exactly as this one does. But I gotta do it. The driver side is much worse...


 
You're a maniac. I pray for the balls to dive in like you have.
 
I need to start chopping the quarters on 73 Imp but I'm scared...
 
The first big leap into it is if you have a couple of minutes, grab a pc. of chalk and mark out in the straightest, shortest, lines, the area where you have to cut.
It gets huge.
 
That last section you pictured is a complicated area as far as fabricating a piece of flat stock. Have you searched for any doner metal? You could peal the rocker panel back but you'd have to drill out all the spot welds along the bottom pinch joint working your way forward. I'm guessing you already know what you're going to find when you do that and for that very reason you may want to do it. You can take that opportunity to clean out all the debrie from in between the inner and outer rocker that is no doubt already starting to rot from the inside out and treat it to a de-rusting agent or maybe a healthy coating of Rust Bullet.
 
Bryan said:
I have one of those I picked up in a box of tools at an auction. I didn't know what it was for for the longest time. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Took you a while, but glad you noticed. ;)

As far as the dog leg is involved, a cleanly cut out donor part is the ideal solution. Not sure about the situation of aftermarket parts for these cars in the US. For European cars we had a good many companies who produced repair panels for typical rust areas. These were an acceptable start but often needed more or less adaption, some so badly you were better off to start from scratch.
Now if you're forced to do this from a flat piece of metal try to carefully hammer it over the original remnants and leave them in place till the repair panel is done, this works better than you think, if there's still enough remnants left. See that you can fix the metal to some of the existing edges with vice clamps and the like if you have the basic shape and further work on the details. For the rough shape to cut out of the flat piece of metal make a template out of cardboard, think you used that technique previously. It has some similar behaviour as the metal you shape itself and gives you some hints of critical areas you may cut in a bit etc. If will produce you a patch panel that is marginally larger than what the original was but can still be put in with a little tweaking even by buttwelding without messing up the gaps if you work properly. As with all things of course this works the better the more experience you get.

I used this technique lately during replacement of the frame rail reinforcements on our Volvo, in general a milder bent dogleg if you will but in way heavier gage steel. It even worked to do it in one piece.

001-3.jpg

001-3.jpg
 
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Thank you Matt, and cm23!!

There is a lot of rust hiding behind that panel for sure. The inner rocker panel is blown out as well in that area. I don't have a parts car, or panels available.. As you can see this car should probably be a parts car! lol but she has a lot of sentimental value to me.

I'm definitely going to give that a try, cm23! I believe the panel is strong enough to bend the new metal over, and form a patch. Do you think I should brace the door opening, before cutting it apart?

Thanks again guys!
 
No need to brace that thing has 6 pillars!!!
 
Alright, thank you my man!! I'd rather ask before cutting, then cut and go S#it! Its also a little unnerving when I shut the door, and the whole quarter panel literally waves at me lol

I'll get the door off, and start on it in the next couple days. Will probably tackle the holes up top first.
 
The car has been kicking my *** the last few days! Took a big chunk out of the back of my hand, burned the hell out of my ankles from sparks, set myslef on fire today without realising it, and my old air compressor that has been on it's last leg is finally going out.. Can't win!

Also found more work I was not expecting. The whole flange on the wheel arch needs replacing. Uhg. After recovering from the above, got back on it today. Still have a couple patches to do. Then on to grinding these down. I'll cut the excess metal off when the welding is done.

 
Haha, reminds me of the last couple years of working on mine.

Lookin' good! Keep up the great work!

Alan
 
commando1 said:
That definitely would have justified buying one of those bender/stretcher tools. But you're like me. Cheap. LOL
Click to expand...

I really should buy one, but.........

I'm pretty happy with how its coming out. That started out as one piece, after tacking the rear in, i realised that wasn't going to happen. So started cutting, and formining each piece as I went. Ofcoarse as soon as I though I found some good metal too bite into with the welder, I started blowing holes threw. Another piece needed. Hopefully the last one up top.
 
Thought I hit gold last week. A '77 royal monaco popped up on craigslist close to me. I called, and talked with the guy a few times. I knew most of the car was trashed (interior, and drivetrain). But told him, all I was concerned about was if the car had a clear tittle, and a SOLID rust free body. He told me several times how clean the body was, yada yada yada.. So I rented a tow dolly, and set out on a 3 hour drive with some friends. What a joke! The trunk floor on the car was made out of sheets of rubber, fiberglassed in. Rust on every single panel of the car. Couldn't believe it! Wish I could have gotten some pics of the handywork, but the car was in a nasty part of town, and we were not sticking around after I told the guy NO! lol




It did give me a good kick in the *** to get some work done on mine though! Finished up the quarter panel finally. Its gonna need some filler here, and there for sure... But atleast there will be SOILD metal behind it, and not big gapping holes. I'm missing a few pics of some of the work, but you get the idea.






 
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