Right Rear Quarter Trunk Corner Repair - Part 2

Christmas is closing in fast.  And as crazy as this time of the year can be, not to mention a very pregnant daughter waiting to deliver a baby boy, my occupational hazards of greater demands, and family visiting this weekend, I got a little ahead and took some Mustang time.   This part of the repair took place over two sessions...one before "Draco" came through and left 2" of blowing and drifting snow and icy roads thanks to a flat central Indiana landscape.  The second session was this evening while my wife took her mother to the movies.

To begin the installation of the two pieces I fabricated, I elected to install the "flange" that would be plug welded to the trunk lip.   I didn't care for the sharp bend in the radius of the flange when compared to the other side of the trunk.  I decided to rework that radius since I didn't want to load it up with filler.  Remember, less is more.  I used the rusty remnant to help in reforming the new part...



I started out by clamping one of my body dollies into my bench vice.  Then I used my flat faced hammer and rounded out the sharp corner...

Well, that took the sharp corner away, but also removed the 90 degree angle between the horizontal and vertical sides...actually is was more like 80 degrees, but it was nowhere near enough.  I took a piece of round stock and chucked that in the vice.  Then used my hammer to put the proper angle back into the piece.  I knew what would happen before I started, but what the heck.  I'd give it a try.

I couldn't hold the part or clamp is sufficiently to get the bend back into it it.  So I opened the vice and used it as a die and the round rod as the "brake" for those of you familiar with brake forming metal.  I hit the steel rod and as this drove the piece into the vice, the sides turned more vertical until I got the angle I wanted.  This worked fairly good...

I got this piece formed to my satisfaction...well, not really, but as good as I could get it with the equipment at hand.  Then I took it to the drill press and put in the plug weld holes.  I cleaned up the trunk flange with the 2" air sander, clamped that puppy into position and welded it in.   I did put the top piece in place, hence the blue tape to hold the edge flush with the body.  This is a picture just before putting the welds in...

This is a picture of the post-mortem...I mean, after the plug welds and grinding them smooth.  It's a tight area to work in....

After a lot of work with the pick hammer, chisel, air saw, and air sander, etc. the bottom part now matched the top piece fairly good.  This is a picture after tack welding it into position...

It fit well...too well.  There wasn't enough of a gap and the weld penetration stunk.  So I decided to drop back the proverbial 10 yard and punt.   End of evening one.   Fast forward to this afternoon...

I thought I would use my cut off wheel with a thin wheel to put a bevel in the seam and see how that worked.  NOT!   So I used it to cut a gap into the seam.  I used one of my weld clamps to hold the edge into position.  Then started the tack welds. 

 The weld had good penetration and worked better.  I was using air to cool the weld but still ended up with some heat warpage.  Great!  So now it was tack weld and then off-dolly and hammer work to try and keep the metal from moving around....

While tacking the top seam, I also worked around to the vertical seam to spread the heat around and to keep the pieces from "walking around" on me...

Of course, I ran into the same issue I have with every other repair on this beast.  Pinholes.  So began the process of backlighting the quarter panel to find them all.   Well, I knew I was getting low on shielding gas, but when the gauge hit zero, that was the end of the work for the night.  So I'm about 95% done with the pinholes on the top seams.  It's not looking too bad, but I'm going to have to do some hammer and dolly work to get it formed better.  That also means I'll end up with a skim coat of body filler, which I'm not happy about, but I don't think there's any way to avoid it.

I'll stop by Thrifty Supply sometime in the next week, probably near New Year's weekend.   I'm also near the end of my 023 wire spool.  So I'll get another spool.   I have the inside seam to do and hope I can get to the corner welds to dress them up.

All bets are off on when the next time I'll be back on the car.  Beside the trip to Lexington, Kentucky to visit my daughter and her family, there will be another trip when "Junior" decides to show up.  I'm hoping the new infant Mustang outfit arrives in time for his arrival.  Then he can go home from the hospital dressed in style!!