Rocket Richard

Hey,
Sorry for the long thread here… a bit of intro is in order. Since I got my 66 Dynamic last fall I’ve been on here lots and I’ve been able to get this car on the road. This car seems to be all original, except for the body work. Among a bunch of small repairs I ended up replacing the shoes, rear wheel cylinders, all 4 shocks, control arm bushings, lower ball joints, and I gave it a nice upgrade to dual exhaust with Thornton’s S manifold.

So I was finally able to get my olds into a parking space at my new place in Vancouver. Damn this car is big! I had to park it right up against the wall so other tenants are still able to get to their place somewhat easily. Hopefully they won’t complain and all is good. Not much clearance, but it works!

Now I’m able to start some rust repair on the rear passenger side. Previously I had to make a quick patch at the quarter panel by the passenger’s door so the car would pass a government safety inspection. I wasn’t happy with what I did. A long time ago I took a weekend autobody class where we were taught to make patches using lap welds, patches were held to the good metal with screws in order to weld them in, and after the patch was welded the screws were taken out and the holes plug welded before grinding. I don’t like the thought of doing lap welds, especially when I can’t seal up the back side to prevent water and crud from doing nasty things to the weld. After seeing some of the work from the guys here on CO, I want to do this over with a but-welded piece and try the whole repair with as little body filler as possible, wish me luck! Any tips on but-welding? I hear 1/16” gap all around is good, how do you hold the patch in place?

Rust doesn’t seem to be a major issue on this car (yeah famous last words), but wow the paint is no good! Peeled off in a lot of areas especially the trunk. As I look at it more and more I see evidence of previous body work, filler in some areas and a respray that didn’t pass the test of time. I know the rear window seal died at some point, and there’s likely a fair amount of rust repair lurking under the chrome moulding there.

Anyhow, so I took off the patch I made and poked around the metal to see what I’m up against. A few paint bubbles turned out to be very weak/rusted through metal… speed holes maybe? I’m wondering how much metal I should remove. I just don’t like the idea of removing rusted out metal to a point where I say WTF do I do now???

It seems that road dirt found its way into the rocker panel and must have held water in there making the rust problem bad. As I was poking around under the car at the rocker a kind of rubber flap attached to rusted out metal came off, I guess this was some kind of drain flap or something that got plugged up. And man, there was a lot of dirt behind that rusted up metal!

Makes me wonder how much dirt this car has tucked away… doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy. I want to make sure all this dirt and crud is out of there, but it seems the only way to get at it is if I cut a hole or two for access. Any recommendations out there for rust in these tricky areas? Should I just replace the weak metal and then spray in some sort of anti-rust treatment?

Looking at the rust in this area I’m thinking I’ll have to take out the rear seat and pull back any carpet etc. so I can get at all the weak metal and weld without starting a fire.

Cheers,
Rich
PS - First time posting pics, so hopefully they come through.

69442C

Rich,
Nice car but it looks like you have yourself a little project on your hands. The good thing is you can weld. As they say, RUST is a four letter word!! I realize you don't have an ideal working situation but if it were me, this is what I would give thought to doing. I would see if I could find from someone on this site, or through some of the western US States wrecking yards, an entire section of the rusted area from a donor car. I would cut that rocker as far forward as needed, drill out the spot welds where the floor attaches to the rocker, assuming the floor is solid there. If not, cut into the floor as far back as you need to for solid metal. Then cut along the quarter and wheelhouse in the same manner to eliminate all the rotted metal. Then trim the replacement section and weld it into place. It will take a fair amout of trial fitting but in the end you should be able to have a repair that most people won't know was done. When the rocker is cut open, clean out whatever is in there and you could spray in a weldable primer to try to seal the metal. Once all the welding is done on the rocker, go in through the rubber flap with a wax type sealer with the wand and spray that entire weld area to seal it. I think if you try to make patch pieces you'll spend a lot more time and the result will not be as good. (Sorry, not trying to insult any of your work as I don't know your skills) You can butt weld the replacement piece in there for a nicer result and just smooth the welds when done.

You'll need to remove the rear seat, carpet and anything in the trunk as well as to clean off any undercoat where you would cut and weld. Watch for brake and fuel lines or any electrical wires in the area too. If you decide to go in this direction, remember that the rocker contains a galvanized coating that will produce poisonous gas when you weld to it. Make sure you have some air movement to keep the fumes away from you but not so much that the welding shield gas is also blown away. If need be, weld on the rocker a little at a time.

Your pictures were fine in your posting. Give it some thought and if you want to tackle it this way, post on here for help finding what you need.

Good luck and ask any questions as you go along.
Brian

Rocket Richard

Thanks Brian,
You're right, it would be nice if I can find a good donor for this car. I'm going to take a look. In the meantime, I'll remove the seats, carpet, etc. and clean up what I can to see just how bad the rust situation is.

Crossing my fingers that it's not too bad!

Thanks for the tip on the galv metal. I didn't know that.

-Rich

69442C

There was a point many years ago that I didn't know that either. But a floor repair along with replacing a section of rocker panel on a 65 Malibu SS sure schooled me very quickly.

I wouldn't buy a complete donor car unless one fell into your lap for a cheap price and had solid panels on it. Instead, I would find one in a wrecking yard in one of the Western states as those cars are usually very solid and get someone there to sell you the section you need. Or maybe someone on this site has a parts car laying around and can help. This section you would need could be boxed up and shipped to you. Just get the secton a little bigger than you need so you have plenty to work with. Coming up short would be bad.

If you wanted and if you find this replacement section, you could drill out the spot welds that hold the quarter skin to the wheelhouse and rocker panel. With those pieces in hand all separated, you could go about sectioning in the wheelhouse to get that buttoned up, section in the rocker, finish off the welds and hit any hidden areas with epoxy primer and then go about fitting the quarter skin/dog leg sheetmetal to the rebuilt structure. It just becomes a big puzzle in some respects and if you can figure out how to remove the bad parts and section in the replacements so it goes back as it is supposed to be, you'll have a nice professional repair.

txtom

as far as holding panels in place for welding, I used welding magnets. you can get some small cheap ones from harbor freight. they come in handy for all sorts of stuff. you can just stick on the body to hold screws when you're working on stuff.

Rocket Richard

Just a quick note that I was able to pull the seat, rug, etc. to take a look and what a relief, the floor is solid right up to the rocker!

Going to clean it up some more on the weekend and post some pics.

-Rich

Rocket Richard

Hey,
So I got to expose some more of the damage over the weekend and found a couple of patches were put in this area by the door. Looks like whoever did it didn't even bother to cut out rusted metal, just put the patches on. Lap welds, tacked into place with bondo for the icing on the cake .

By looking at the seam at the top of the wheel well on the inside of the car, I could see a trail of rust coming from that rear windshield all the way to this corner! That leaky seal really caused a lot of problems.

Here are some pics of what I found... including a 1965 nickel from under the seat! Wonder how long that was there .

So after looking at it for a while my girlfriend started to make fun of me . This corner is a bit busy with sheet metal from a few areas all joining together... it was like trying to solve a puzzle and I was staring at it like it was one of those 3-D images that makes you go all cross-eyed.

But I've made a decision... I'm going to try making patch panels and see what happens. I really like working with metal, so this car will give me a lot to work on and practice with. I have a few ideas I'm going to try out.

And hey, if it doesn't work out I can always find some clean metal from a bone yard later on.

MDchanic

I like this idea!
As far as I'm concerned, that's the way to do it - have fun and learn, and if you screw it up, you can fix it later .

- Eric

Allan R

Nice work Rich. Kind of reminds me of the 98 I had. Needed full rockers on both sides. I see you've got rust on the dogleg as well. Have you considered opening them up to see how far it's gone? My car was originally from ON and the rust had gone up into the A, B, and C pillars. You might find the inside of the pillars may be pretty far gone too. Good luck with this project; I'm glad you have the tools, skills and right attitude to challenge it.

Rocket Richard

Hey,
Thanks for the encouraging words guys.

Yeah I'd say the rust extends 7 or 8 inches from the corner on the pillar and rocker. I know I'm going to open it up, but not yet... I think I'll be making panels as I go instead of taking everything out all at once. That way (I'm hoping) the patch panels should be a better fit.

As far as sheet metal tools go... I don't have anything fancy. Not planning on buying anything just yet. We'll see what I can do. But I'm not on a schedule here. This should be good.

442_Mustang

A few years ago I did a similar job on a 67 Plymouth FuryIII. I learned a lot of fabricating skills and techniques on that as there are zero patch panels for that thing. I saw it a few years ago. It still looks pretty good. Have fun, Think about how to do it, measure a few times and cut once, and don't weld it in place until you are certain it is where you want it.

69442C

Rich, I applaud your enthusiasm and your desire to make your own parts. Try to remove the bad pieces in as big a section that you think you can make rather than cutting things into a lot of smaller pieces. The larger "bad" piece will serve as a nice template even if the repair pieces are built in smaller sections to ultimately resemble the larger piece. Think about how you will put it all together (yes, more staring at those bad areas) that will allow you to coat the sides of the metal that will eventually be covered up. You may need to think about coating the back of some of the pieces before you weld them in place if you don't think you can get to them when it's done. You don't want your efforts to rust away in a few years due to bare metal in hidden areas.

Good luck and post pictures of your work.

Brian

MDchanic

This may sound silly, but if you're starting this from scratch and will be buying your own materials as you need them (as opposed to scrounging old road signs like I do ), you might consider working in low-grade stainless if you can find it. It would eliminate worries about the inside re-rusting, especially at the welds, where you know any paint or galvanizing will just burn off when you're assembling it, and should still be amenable to painting over an etching primer.

- Eric

Tony72Cutlass'S'

Just a little idea, if you need to patch a floor panel, i've noticed that the old 486 computer you might have lying in your basement because "maybe i'll need that good ol' 3.1x again"

Those computer panels work great to patch floor panels, and they're already coated for anti rust!

cheers,

Tony

69442C

That's a nice thought but ........ no. This presents several issues such as welding different metals together, stainless is often harder than steel so it is less workable, different metals when combined create their own corrosion issues (usually referred to as galvanic reaction) and the cost of the stainless will be more. If it was that easy, all patch panels would be offered in stainless to eliminate future rust issues.

I like your thinking but in reality this is just not something that will work. Now if we were talking about a DeLorean...

MDchanic

I'm not sure that there's a galvanic differential between stainless and mild steel, but I do see your point.

Harder? Definitely, but a "low-grade" type of stainless should still be workable, especially with a bit of heat.

No doubt more expensive, but the quantities involved are relatively small, so I wouldn't think the dollar difference would be that great.

I'm no metal worker or metallurgist, but the few times I've used stainless (and, no I've never welded it), I thought "I should do this more often."

Just a thought anyway...

- Eric

Dapapadon

I don't think bondo will stick to stainless. Even if it did the expansion rate of stainless is 9 times that of mild steel. So warpage would be an issue while welding the two metals together. Or imagine your new $2000 paint job popping the bondo in sunlight.

Stick with mild steel patches!

Don

MDchanic

I did not know that.

- Eric

coppercutlass

not all repairs have to be welded 3m panel bond works wonders and is very strong i used it on my cutlass where i made small non structural repairs and you dont have to weld and of course when you weld you create rust which is no good but i would weld big panels like quarters full rockers etc. etc.all you have to do is flange your patch panel apply the panel bond and sheet metal screw it let it dry take the screws out fill those with panel bond and your good and no warpage and less filler use., also buy some flanging pliers they make a nice step so that the overlap is behind instead of outside the panel which leaves a close to flush surface which means less filler i would recomend them wether you are welding or using panel bond

442_Mustang

Panelbond works well but on a long panel it will tend to leave a ghost line wherethe seam is. Not a huge deal though. I glued on a pair of quarter panels on a 78 Camaro 12 years ago and they still look perfect unless the temp gets cooler there's a tiny line but nobody notices it but me, Plus it;s a sealed repair.

Rocket Richard

Some interesting points I haven't thought of. I've heard that you can weld stainless to mild steel, but you need a low CO% in your shield gas and you need stainless wire... From what I've seen it's really something you do only if you're in a pinch. That's too bad, would've been cool.

Also, I can see how the panel bond would be a good thing. I'm hoping to patch this up with as little bondo as possible, so I'll try but welding for now.

Hoping for a good weekend. Tormorrow I'm going to pick up some sheet metal, probably 18 GA mild steel. Then I get to play with metal for a while!