Right Rear Quarter Panel Repair - Part 3

It's bee awhile since I've been able to get back on the fastback.  I do have to be honest that I have used my very limited spare time to get some flying done, particularly my Instrument Proficiency Check before the end of the month when the club 10% winter discount goes away.   But I also had some other obligations such as conducting a close family friend's funeral in Battle Creek, Michigan and an all-day seminar this past Saturday.   Another infraction on my time was my daily driver was down for repair.  The crankshaft pulley bolt decided to back out and trashed the pulley that is also the harmonic balancer.   Thankfully, the crank nose wasn't damaged from the key shearing and the pulley wobbling on the crank.  It did break a small 1/8" chunk on the end of the keyway, but it all went back together OK.  I bough a used pulley, a new bolt and key, along with the specific tool to allow me to torque it back to 120 FT-Lbs. with a smear of blue Loctite for extra measure.   So there have been a number of diversions.   In general, this is just a real busy time of the year for me and will not relent until after Easter.   So I have to grab time as I see fit.

At the last exciting episode, I was making slow but steady progress on getting the dents and dimples out of the quarter panel.   I ordered one tool to help with the process after doing a little web browsing.   The first tool was a "slapping spoon".  This is used in place of a body hammer.  It spreads the force of the blows across a wider area to help smooth out the panel....

Then after seeing a youtube video of bodywork on an original 50's T-Bird front fender, I ordered a second tool.  This is a pneumatic body hammer.  It goes in the air chisel and works sort of like half of an English wheel/hammer....

So with both of these in hand, I fired up the 'ol torpedo heater and shampooed the living room carpet while the garage came up to temperature.  

If you recall, this is where I left off....

There are still quite a few of those little dents and dimples and creases and....well, it's just a lot of imperfections.   So it was time to try the great experiment.   But for this blog, I decided it would be better to show and explain it in video than to try and put it into words.   So below are two Youtube videos for your to watch.   The first is using the pneumatic hammer with the slapping spoon.   The second is using the spoon alone with a dolly.

You may notice that the color of the low spots has changed as I used a high-build primer to spray the rear quarter.  Then I sanded it and used the new paint areas to identify the spots still needed some work.  After an hour of work, this is the result, a noticeable improvement from the picture above.

The dark spots were made by the shrinking disc.  It's the heat affected zone and also where the metal got polished by the disc.  I then put another couple of coats of high-build primer on the quarter to see how it looks and to be ready when I get back on it the next session.  I'll do another sanding job and then continue the process working my way down on the quarter panel.   There are still a couple of areas needing attention, but there is progress, especially when I started with this...

...and now it looks like this.....

I do have my doubts that I'll get the bottom  section of the quarter panel reworked to my satisfaction, especially since there is a mild body reveal line and the metal at that point is very lumpy, not to mention my access with the air hammer will be limited.   As in all things, time will tell.