I'm finally back to doing work on the fastback. It's been a long time...long enough that flash rust was starting to form, particularly on the joints. After a quick clean up of the affected areas, I got back to where I left off...finishing welding in the quarter panel patch.
There really isn't a whole lot to show for the time put in. It's the same ol', same ol' process. Tack...skip...tack...skip...tack...skip...etc. until there's not much room in between the tacks....
Then it's grind...and then grind some more...and some more. The 4" angle grinder with a 60 grit flap sander knocked down most of it. Then the 2" air grinder finished up the details...
It didn't look too bad and it didn't have must weld distortion in it. But then I looked at it from the inside and saw tons of my favorite repair...PIN HOLES. A bunch of PIN HOLES!!!
Welding from the inside to fix them would have been difficult process, even with the rotisserie. I resorted to my previous trick I used on the floors. I got my halogen work light and set it up in the trunk so that the light would shine from the inside. This is what the PIN HOLES look like...
Aaarrrrrgggghhhhh...among other choice words. So I started the process of tacking the holes. I was making fairly good progress and thought I'd finish it up in one day when my Aussie mate down the road stopped by for a chat.
He's quite a character. We talked about a couple of projects he's got going on in his shop, particularly a 32 highboy roadster that someone started and Lord knows who butchered the frame by incorrectly boxing it and what looked like 'eyeballing' the suspension mounts. He's had to make all kinds of modifications to make it right. The crazy thing is that the body is a Brookville roadster body that goes for around $13K. Sometime you wonder what people are thinking when the build a car. We chatted about Connie Kalitta. For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, he used to be a big-time drag racer. I remember seeing him in his top fuel dragster at US 131 Martin Dragway in Michigan. Wow! 220 MPH in the quarter mile was hot stuff then. He's since retired and is CEO of Kalitta Air. His airline is strictly custom air cargo. I used to see his planes all the time when I lived in Lexington, Kentucky. He would be hired to fly horses overseas that high-rollers purchased for breeding stock.
Anyway...I digress. After about 45 minutes, I needed to stoke the smoker so the multiple racks of ribs would be done. Time had, as Steve Miller sang went "Slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future." It was after 6PM and I hadn't eaten anything substantial since breakfast. So with hunger and a dirty body, I shut down shop for the day. However, I did a final check of pin holes and did make what I considered substantial progress. With a soap stone in hand (can't find paint pen) I marked the pin holes that were left. I'm sure more will appear since they seem to breed like rabbits.
I am hoping against all odds that after the next session, the welding will be done and I'll get back to the body tools to smooth out the remaining imperfections.
As far as I can tell, beside going back over the body and dressing up the other welds and PIN HOLES I find, this should close out the welding on the body shell. Then I can start the process of using Metal-To-Metal filler to make the weld joints disappear where they would be visible.
Progress...be it slow...is still progress. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Until next post....
There really isn't a whole lot to show for the time put in. It's the same ol', same ol' process. Tack...skip...tack...skip...tack...skip...etc. until there's not much room in between the tacks....
Then it's grind...and then grind some more...and some more. The 4" angle grinder with a 60 grit flap sander knocked down most of it. Then the 2" air grinder finished up the details...
It didn't look too bad and it didn't have must weld distortion in it. But then I looked at it from the inside and saw tons of my favorite repair...PIN HOLES. A bunch of PIN HOLES!!!
Welding from the inside to fix them would have been difficult process, even with the rotisserie. I resorted to my previous trick I used on the floors. I got my halogen work light and set it up in the trunk so that the light would shine from the inside. This is what the PIN HOLES look like...
Aaarrrrrgggghhhhh...among other choice words. So I started the process of tacking the holes. I was making fairly good progress and thought I'd finish it up in one day when my Aussie mate down the road stopped by for a chat.
He's quite a character. We talked about a couple of projects he's got going on in his shop, particularly a 32 highboy roadster that someone started and Lord knows who butchered the frame by incorrectly boxing it and what looked like 'eyeballing' the suspension mounts. He's had to make all kinds of modifications to make it right. The crazy thing is that the body is a Brookville roadster body that goes for around $13K. Sometime you wonder what people are thinking when the build a car. We chatted about Connie Kalitta. For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, he used to be a big-time drag racer. I remember seeing him in his top fuel dragster at US 131 Martin Dragway in Michigan. Wow! 220 MPH in the quarter mile was hot stuff then. He's since retired and is CEO of Kalitta Air. His airline is strictly custom air cargo. I used to see his planes all the time when I lived in Lexington, Kentucky. He would be hired to fly horses overseas that high-rollers purchased for breeding stock.
Anyway...I digress. After about 45 minutes, I needed to stoke the smoker so the multiple racks of ribs would be done. Time had, as Steve Miller sang went "Slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future." It was after 6PM and I hadn't eaten anything substantial since breakfast. So with hunger and a dirty body, I shut down shop for the day. However, I did a final check of pin holes and did make what I considered substantial progress. With a soap stone in hand (can't find paint pen) I marked the pin holes that were left. I'm sure more will appear since they seem to breed like rabbits.
I am hoping against all odds that after the next session, the welding will be done and I'll get back to the body tools to smooth out the remaining imperfections.
As far as I can tell, beside going back over the body and dressing up the other welds and PIN HOLES I find, this should close out the welding on the body shell. Then I can start the process of using Metal-To-Metal filler to make the weld joints disappear where they would be visible.
Progress...be it slow...is still progress. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Until next post....
Looking good Dennis, that panel is almost there!
ReplyDelete"Almost" is the key. Hopefully the next post I can call the metal work DONE!
DeleteThat poor quarter panel - beat, pulled, stretched, shrunk, ground, welded, wacked and pounded. Hopefully it has learned its lesson and will behave itself from here on out :)
ReplyDeleterj
I can only hope it's learned it's lesson. This weekend will be the telling tale!
DeleteAck! I'm now having flashbacks of chasing pinholes and blowouts around panels. Thanks for that Dennis. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhen grinding the weld joints down, don't concentrate too long in one spot or the heat from the grinder will warp the seam area just like the welder will.
Looks good though! As the old saying goes, if it were easy, everybody would be doing it.
10-4 on the grinding. The other trick is to grind parallel to the weld so that you're removing only the weld material and not the metal around it. Then it just makes everything worse, including the warping.
DeleteI know I'll have some hammer and dolly work to do when the welding is done, but it will be much better than what I started with.