Thanks for the tips .... I put a bit of primer on there just to cover it with something for now . I can't see any deviations anywhere , so I'm going to leave it the way it is until I sand the primer off in all these spots in order to add the epoxy ....

 

Bryan
Deviations aren't all that easy to see with primer sprayed like that. You'll see them easier when the primer is wet and viewing from an angle. At least for now it's not exposed metal, but remember that moisture can penetrate basic primers. So if you're planning to leave it for awhile? Spray with something that will at least seal the surface. Good progress to date BTW. Only one who'll know those dents are there will be you and 'us'.

 

I'm now going to focus on the fender alignments in which I need to move everything back about an 1/8 " on one side , and about a 1/16 " on the other . There is no more play in the fender adjustment itself , so I have to loosen all the fender bolts , and the inner rear fender bolts on the cowl , and loosen the radiator support bolts . Then I have to pound everything back a bit . ( I hope this works ) I also have to support the hood when I loosen these bolts , so the weight of the hood does not make everything go down . I supported the back of the hood with a phonebook , and the front of the hood slightly ....



, gotta love the use of the Medical book for this job ....

 

The reason the radiator support has to be moved is I had the whole thing off at one time , and apparently did not put it back in the exact spot .

 

When it was wet , I could slightly see a couple of spots , but it's good enough for now . I plan on removing this primer this spring , and i'm going to add the epoxy . This is only a temporary thing , and if I plan on putting some paint on the car down the road , i'll have to sand the rest of the car down , add a build primer , block sand , and you know the rest .

 

Bryan, I don't think you can 'reposition' the rad support on the 72. It bolts to the front frame under the battery tray and on the right side, so there's very little adjustment there. It gets it's stability from basic design and attachment points to other components. Only thing I believe you can adjust is the height of the support using shims. Probably would be easier to re-shim the fenders than play with the rad support.

 

Snap . I'll have to look , but I could of sworn the frame had a slot instead of a round hole , or at the very least a big enough hole to move it around a bit . I'll crawl under ther and take a look , and adjust my plan if needed .

 

Bryan and Allan,

The radiator support does move and it's side-to-side movement and some front-to-back movement is a big part in aligning the front sheetmetal. The front-to-back movement is much less than the side to side. But also keep in mind that the angle of the support relative to the angle of the firewall (in theory they are perfectly parallel) can also be changed with just the fender movement. If your fenders are a little too far forward then it's possible the radiator support is angled forward and away from the firewall at the upper portion. Or, the entire thing is not perfectly perpendicular to the top of the frame rails but rather tilted forward with the top furthest away from the firewall. When you slide the fenders back, the support will move and straighten up. If your fenders are shimmed correctly where the fender sits on the top of the cowl, then you don't need to support the hood. Just loosen the fender bolts and slide the fender back. The hood may cause the bolt that goes into the cowl down by the hinge to get out of place but you can adjust that later once the rest of the fender is aligned. You may want to loosen the radiator support bolts because if you move one fender back further than the other, you'll need to adjust the hood backward too and when you move the hood by different amounts on each side, the hood will not fit correctly between the fenders. What will happen is one front corner of the hood will be tighter than the other. To fix that you don't move the fender out but rather slide the entire front end and radiator support over so you balance out the gaps. You start aligning the fenders to the doors for the gap and the correct height. Then start adjusting the hood so it is aligned with the front edge of the fenders and so the side gaps are the same. Sometimes just the hood needs a shove over to the other side if the gap on one side is tight but even. If the hood to fender gaps are not even on both sides, then you need to slide the front to one side or the other using that radiator support side-to-side movement.

Brian

 

Brian,
Thank you for the clarification. I know I have to remove my rad support this year so I'll use some witness marks on the frame and fenders to get things lined up properly afterwards. I was basing my comment on what I'd seen on my car and the AM.

Check on Joe's thread - he was having a heck of a time with lining up his fenders and new hood. After reading your explanation I believe it may be in part due to the fender/rad support alignment.

 

Thanks Brian & Allan . Good luck Allan when you got to deal with this , it's a lot of fun ! My hood is off just like Brian said , and I believe the hinges are a bit worn out from not being aligned for awhile . You also have a hard time opening the hood too . the latch is rubbing quite a bit on the top plate as you close & open it . The drivers side door bushings are totally shot . You can lift the door up and down quite a bit . The radiator support bushings are also shot . It's amazing I got the fender / door gap as good as I did . There is also filler from the factory at the top of the door edge where it meets the fender , and I must of sanded it off on the passenger side years ago I presume , so that area of the gap is off . I also sanded the filler off where the door rubbed on the fender years ago , so i'm going to have to recreate that worn out spot too . I will post pics once i'm done dealing with all of this . I had enough fun with this for one day , so now it's nap time .

edit ... I moved the latch over a bit , and now the hood closes decent .

 

Well the good news is I learned how to get things lined up decent with the shims , but I couldn't better the gap on this side . I must not of moved the radiator support enough when I had the bolt loose . The passenger side turned out perfect , but i'm not quite done with the filler portion of it .... as you can see in the first pic the gap is a little wide yet . The red arrow points to a rounded edge I had to recreate with filler , because I sanded the old filler off that was there from whoever did the body work last on this car . I also really got to get rid of this orange color that is poking out everywhere ....





I also took liberty drilling out the letter holes to the right of the trunk lock that I covered up with filler years ago , because there was a dent there . Nice bumper eh ? No your not seeing things , the rear bumper is all dented up . I was going to take a sledge hammer to it this summer and see if I can straighten it . I'm going to need a replacement soon , but first comes the tires that are desperately needed ....

 

Bryan,
The gap where your red arrow points is typical of these fenders. I'd be hesitant to use body filler on the edges just to make them look better; mostly because it will be thin and really have no backing to hold onto as on a panel. The only way I know to make those gaps dead perfect would be to weld onto the edges like Brian had to do on the 69 around the tail lights. The references for gap are in the 72 Assembly Manual. You probably have that, but if not I can scan the page and post it for you to print.

Looking good. I don't think a hammer is what you need for the rear bumper judging by the rust on it, but you're right - do the tires first. They're a safety issue.

 

That's what was on there from the PO , and it lasted decades .... as long as you don't hit it with a hammer or something . You just have to put a certain thickness on the back of that area , it should hold for awhile . The other door has metal sticking out , so just the edge needed a bit of filler . I wonder why this side didn't .

I'm almost done with the other side . I'll snap a picture of it when I get a chance .

 

Not all these doors were created 'equal' and quality control of the day wasn't as good as today. Anyway - whatever works.

 

Bryan, make sure you open and close the door, and allow for paint on the edge of the fender and door. Too close, and when you paint it, you'll be chipping paint. Getting a perfect gap on '70-'72 fender to door is near impossible......

 

It sure is a PITA !

 

Well this is gonna have to do for now . I still have the issue I almost forgot about on the driver side rear Qtr wheel well lip . I went to the Science and Surplus store and found some dental tools that hopefully will help in dealing with that area when I get to it .....

 

I'm really not liking the color orange anymore

 

I'm back at the Rear QTR Wheel Well area again , and I'm trying to find a tool that will fit in the crack where the two pieces of metal come together . I bought these files that somewhat fit in there , but not all the way down . I cleaned it up pretty good so far , but I almost got my skinny arm stuck in the hole after it slipped past my elbow . I taped the tool to a long screwdriver with minimal success .... I will have to keep working at it , and once I find the right tool to fit in there a bit further , I'm going to get some rust ecapsulator to pour in there ....

 

I bought this today ....

 

I'm going to buy this also ....

 

I had to come up with an idea that would get in between the metal on the Inner Rear QTR Wheel Well Lip before where the metal is spot welded together to get the rust scale out before I use the rust encapsulator , and the non-hardening 3M 08892 rust fighter . The first pic is the original ideas I came up with that didn't work to well , and the second pic was the answer to this . I taped a piece of sand paper to the long piece of sheet metal leaving an inch sticking out of the front . I started with 100 grit , and finishing with 40 grit . You get the idea on how it works in picture three and four ....

Failed Tools ....



The one that worked ....



Like I said , the sandpaper would hang out about an inch so it could bend in to the area I needed it to go ....



and here's the area I'm working on ....



I also will bring home some waterproof foamy gasket material from work that I will shove down in there on both sides to act as a dam so the rust inhibitors wont just run off . I will post some pics on that when the time comes . Do you think I should POR the sanded non-rusty area again before adding the other stuff ? The one product says there should be rust where you add that product .

 

I didn't get real far lately on the rear QTR wheel well lip . I managed to get the area I wanted POR'd , then I did a coating of the Rust Ecapsulator . I stuck some sandwich bags in the crack to sort of dam up the area where I spray the rust encapsulator , so it dont just run off .....



I came up with this idea to make sure I got everything up where the two pieces of metal are spot welded together . I stick the tube in the wheel well crack , and let the natural curve of the hose point inward toward the spot welds .....


and here's where I added the first application of filler ( fiberglass ) , you can see where I added a coat of finishing filler over this in the rim pictures below these .....

 

I got the rims mounted and cleaned up . They are missing two beauty rings , and one snap on cap .....



Like I said I have to add some more filler on the wheel well lip , and recreate the lip edge that got rusted away .....


This tire had one giant white wall on the tire that looked like **** , so I got some vinyl paint along with some dover colored white paint I had laying around , some tape , and newspaper and created this white wall stripe to match the other wheels . I still have a few touch ups to do , but it looks pretty good .....

 

Looks good, can't even tell from the pictures that you painted over the wider whitewall. I use eastwood's rust encapsulator too with excellent results. One of my favorite resto products.

 

Bryan - all the whitewall tires have a wide white sub layer. It only gets exposed when the sidewall of the tire is scraped against the curb too much. Be careful on that one - the side wall could be seriously thinner than what's safe. BTW nice job with the cosmetic fix!

 

I didn't know that . I guess that would be called a Chicago curb job special , as J(Chicago) put it as we were looking at the tires & rims , and he wasn't the one who did the curb job either . He must of aquired them that way . I guess who ever had these tires last needed curb finders . I'm going to replace the tires down the road soon for some wider ones to give it a better look in the back . Those sure are some tall tires . I think the whole car sits about a half foot higher now .... anyone for some off roading ?

Thanks for the comps guys .

 

Some of the guys who want the rat rod look actually grind the sidewalls off for that 'fat white wall' look.

 

Here's what the tire looked like before ....

 

Looks like someone didn't know how to park next to a curb - ever.

 

x2

 

I must of looked at this area for too long , and got carried away with it . It did turn out decent though , but now I'll have to re-drill the holes for the chrome trim piece that goes over the rear qtr wheel well lip . I still have to finish up with the rust encapsulator on the inside trunk portion of this side yet . I'll have to invent or buy some kid of tool to reach beyond arms length to get all of it though ....

 

Looking good Bryan. Coming together a bit at a time. The SSIII's look pretty good on the car.

 

Looks great. It was nice of them to leave you just enough black line as a guide for the original stripe. Obviously, that was the front right tire, and the car came from the city. Glad you could use them. I kind of like the look.

 

LOL - now that's funny J. Bryan must have had a very steady hand to get that line so even all the way around. Reminds me of the 'old days' at the HD bodyshop that used to fix the company motor coaches. They would use that black tire paint to dress the tires after the coaches were all repaired, painted and wheels done up.

Bryan? You could be the new guru of tire painting bud!

 

Bryan,

I just wanted to say it is amazing the attention to detail that you are putting into your efforts. It is even more impressive on a buget. I commend your efforts, and at the rate your are going, you will have it restored a good 10 years before I get mine done.

 

Thanks .... The new approach to this is actually getting something constructive done anyhow . The car will look a lot better this summer when I'm driving it around . I will feel better about it too .

 

lol , painting that stripe was not easy , and it's gonna be short lived too . I'm gonna get two tires for the back tomorrow probably . I'm going to leave the fronts the way they are for a while , and they hold air great . Unfortunately the tire I painted the stripe on goes flat every few days or so .... go figure I'm sure the tire place that does the tire swap for me will mess my stripe up . I'm going to hang on to the tires though , can never have enough of them . Maybe I'll put those tall tires on a real small car and it will look like a donk .

BTW ... My exhaust on the Buick I drove over by you last weekend started coming undone on the way home . I'll explain what happened after that in a couple of posts here lol .

 

Thanks , but I think at the rate I've been going at lately It will be a work in progress still in 10 years . There is so much gone wrong with this car now that I just cant keep up .

 

Maybe a guru if I use the right paint .... I guess this is the post I mention the Buicks exhaust extravaganza .... On the way home from J's last weekend , I turned my rockin AC Delco stereo down to hear what I thought was a bit of grumbling from the engine . I thought I was hearing things , so turned the stereo back up to distortion and kept on going .... Once I stopped at the last of many tolls I had to pay that day and took off again , I realized I wasn't hearing things .... The car was getting louder now . I finally got home and didn't drive the car anymore that day . The next day I fired her up to go to the store and it seemed even louder . Well by the next day the pipe broke off right in front of the catalytic converter . ... after driving it like that for a few days I almost went deaf I think . I mean it was really loud ! I scared the crap out of people with that car , and had fun doing it . Everytime you would step on the gas the motor would belch out this BLAAAAAH noise at very high decibels .... only to be beat by a V8 with no exhaust . I even startled this chick at my work with my noisey Buick that I've been chasing ( yep still chasing her , boy can she run ) I probably didn't gain many browning points on that one . Ya should of seen the look on her face though ... Priceless . Anyways I thought it would take like maybe a half hour to fix the broken pipe today . More like 3 1/2 hours of swearing till I could finally find a auto part store exhaust pipe extension piece that would actually fit in both sides . I had to utilize my piece of sheet metal I had for sanding the rear qtr on the CS and make a shim to take up the slop . That and two clamps brought the roar down to a slight grumble . I still have a slight exhaust leak there , but it's way better then it was before .... Well I have to get some sleep for once , so until next time ......