Hawk1061

Hi guys,

Ok, I just bought a 70-72 convertible trunk lid from someone on Craig's list for $150. He said he got it a few years ago from somewhere in Washington state. While not pristine, it doesn't have any sign of rust through so I think it's going to be good. It's painted light blue so it's real easy to identify where there is rust (as compared with the lid on my 'vert which is copper in color making it easier to overlook rusted areas). Looking at the underside of the lid, it's apparent that GM painted both surfaces of the lid AFTER the outer skin was mated to the inner support structure. From what I can see, when they painted the underside of the lid, only the areas where there were 'windows' on the inner support metal had paint get to the underside of the outer skin. Anywhere there is no paint shows some degree of rusting. So here are my questions:

1) How were the outer sheet metal and inner sheet metal joined together? Are they welded together? There appears to be some sort of adhesive showing through some of the windows on the inside, maybe the two are glued together?

2) I'm concerned that the areas between the two panels will continue to rust over time and at some point the rust will eat all the way through to the outer surface. Is there a way to non-destructively separate the inner and outer metal panels, open it up, blast/grind away all rust, paint the inside surfaces completely and then 'mate' them back together?

3) There appears to be a string of eight numbers/letters stamped into the inside surface of the trunk lid on the driver's side ribbing. I assume this is a part number or date code? If a date code, how do I decipher it?

Thanks for your help. After getting this OEM part, I'm wondering if it would have been better to get a repop instead. Are the repop lids painted on the inside between the outer sheet metal and inner support structure or do they still paint the onew ones only where there are windows for paint to flow through?

Thanks guys,
Steve