1971 Chevelle repair

[Too Many Projects]

This pic is a repeat. Hard to see but I left the weld flange of the right trunk drop on the quarter panel. It was brazed on and buried in bondo to "blend" it.





That was this morning task...remove the rest of the drop and tail panel. I dug thru the bondo with a mini belt sander and then cut off the brazing.





There was bondo covering this cobbled mess too. I used the torch to melt out the brazing and cut the remnant off in the seal gutter.











Tail panel still had pieces of the old quarter holding the new one down too low. This was all leveled with filer too.
Once this was out of the way, I ground out the spot welds in the seal gutter with the mini belt sander and removed the last of the old tail panel. Forgot to take a pic of that.




I had to grind off 1/2" from the end of the tail panel to get it to sit in the quarter, but it fit's OK now. I'll have to make a decision about the rusted quarter later. Might let the bodyman/painter deal with that...








When I stopped yesterday, I thought I would come in today and prep and weld on the left inner wheel house repair section. After looking at the way the trunk drop interconnects with that and the tail panel made me stop and figure out the sequence of how this puzzle goes together. I did decide I can sneak the drop in after the quarter is on, so went ahead and prepped the section and welded it on. I left the last 8" or so loose for the drop to slip in and get welded later. It did take some hammer/dolly and bending to get all these pieces to fit snug, and I ended up with very tight gaps on all the parts.

[Too Many Projects]

With the holiday and other things distracting me, I haven't made as much progress on this as I would have liked, but it is getting there. The panel has a bit of a fitment issue in the door pillar. The factory put way too much curve in the lowest jam area and I had to try to get some back. The curve is too tight to get the panel in our stretcher jaws, so I beat the snot out of it with hammer on dolly to stretch the metal back out. I got about half of it back and then marked where I would cut a relief slot to get the rest.














After making the cut and drilling 103 holes to plug weld, I sprayed the bare metal with weld thru primer and was ready to make this panel part of the car.







All clamped and drill screwed in place.








Now the fun starts, figure out a way to weld the bottom to the rocker in the window well area.





With a few contortionist positions, I got them. Not pretty, but no one will see them.





Whole door pillar on and cleaned up. The bottom curve came out really nice.











On to the drip rail seam and roof.











That's all for today.

[Too Many Projects]

I have made more progress over the past couple weeks. After the door pillar and roof seam were where they needed to be, I finished welding the window channel and flange to the extension panel in the trunk.








Then final fit, prep and install of the trunk extension to lower quarter.








Then the messy piece, welding the outer wheel house section and grinding. Lots of spatter while in the wheel house to weld and covered in grinding grit while cleaning up the welds.







At this point, the entire left side of the car has been rebuilt from the damage...
I then started on repairing rust on the right side. I cut out the wheel arch of the quarter and the inner wheel house.








I got patch panels for the arch and rear quarter and cut out what I needed for the arch and attached with drill screws to prevent it from moving during welding.





Not the best pic, but the screws pull the 2 panels together tightly to keep the skim coat of filler to blend as thin as possible.








I had 3 layers where the 2 patches met with the quarter, so I cut the arch patch 2.5 inches up from there for a butt weld to remove that layer and keep it uniform at 2.











Very pleased that I was able to pull the patches tight enough to keep the gap tight in the trunk too. ALL the gaps are much tighter than the original panels were. I will cover the seams with a skim of seam sealer and once the trunk is sprayed with proper textured paint, the seams should hide nicely.