The Dark Horse project

[rtgambit]

Phew! This will be the last post for this week. Sarah and I are heading to my Dad's cottage to enjoy the weekend.

There isn't a whole lot different in these two pics from the last ones I uploaded, except now I only have 20 more spot welds before the trunk floor is one with the car. Progress!! 

[rtgambit]

I have a trunk floor now!! Woo! It's all welded in!

Today's objective: get the trunk extensions welded in. Pics to follow later...

[Rev-It-Up]

I love watching this project!  Let's see the extensions....

[rtgambit]

I love watching this project!  Let's see the extensions....

Well, I got one welded on, anyways.

Here's the finished results for this side. I've got one last bit to weld at the crossmember, but I want to wait until I can replace the sheetmetal that connects the trunk floor to the tail panel.



It's a good thing that no-one can see this after the quarter panel is replaced! 



You can see the spot-welds that I used to connect the trunk extension to the trunk floor. With the curved section on the right it was a little hard getting the gun in there to weld!



Woo! On to the next side! Here I'm lining everything up to make sure it's ready for welding. I still need to drill the holes for the spot welds. This side also needs a bit more finesse to get the pieces to meet nicely.



Top-side view of this extension.


Ya know... I just realized I still have to cut the holes for the gas tank filler neck, evap system, and shock mounts. Oh well - I'll put them on the list.

Just a little more to go back here! 

[rtgambit]

 

I have a full trunk floor! Here's the details.

Drilling holes for spot welds.


Extension back in place and welded up tight!


A shot of the finished product.


Here's where I stop patting myself on the back.  When I first fabbed up the replacement section of the outer wheelhouse everything looked nice and it matched the section I cut out. When I put the quarter panel on tonight I realized that the curve was off by at least 1/2 inch at the bottom. Hence the need to straighten this section out and get it fitting properly.


With the afore-mentioned fix I've got the quarter mounted again - just checking the fitment one last time before I weld it into place. This is where I'm starting to sweat. Every weld I've done on the car up until this point won't be visible unless you really look for it. Well... you can't get any more visible than the quarter panel of a pony car! I'm going to go with the "Measure 5 times, weld once" mantra.

[gomopar440]

Be careful welding that quarter back on. I replaced both quarters on my 72 recently and had a problem with the driver side. We only replaced the lower half of the panel on that side (from just below the body line). On the passenger side we replaced the entire thing. After looking at the mid panel body line it was apparent that the panel got bowed in at the center by about 1/2" at the middle of the wheel arch where it was the worst. If you look down that mid-panel bodyline you will notice it bows slightly outward. My driver quarter was bowing slightly inward. We had to cut the entire legnth of the top weld and part way down the side welds to get it loose. then we used some pressure on the inside of the quarter to push it out to the proper contour to match the other side. Even though we had only moved the panel outward 1/2", the new weld was now about 1" lower than it had been. If we had butt welded the panel instead of overlapping it, I would have had to get a new quarter panel to fix it. Hopefully you won't have to deal with this and you can be aware of some of the problems that can arise when welding up large panels like this. Good luck with it.

[rtgambit]

Be careful welding that quarter back on. I replaced both quarters on my 72 recently and had a problem with the driver side... Hopefully you won't have to deal with this and you can be aware of some of the problems that can arise when welding up large panels like this. Good luck with it.

I was pretty careful about getting this welded on. I didn't go crazy with the welder - only "stitching" for now to get the panel firmly connected to the quarter.

This picture gave me goose-bumps the first time I looked at it. It's starting to look like a real car again! I'm just checking the clearances to certain parts of the rear, plus I'm taking a peek to see which sections of replacement sheet metal are being covered.



Here's a close-up of the section I was looking at.



Wow. I think I need to get my bumpers re-chromed. Anyone have any ballpark ideas on prices?



One last look at how everything fits together before I fire the welder up.



This is an after shot. I welded the quarter to the car using spot welds ever 2 inches or so, which should provide a good base for starting, and cut down on the heat. Here's a look down the quarter to check for warping.



Another shot - a little closer up. Looks good! I'm sure it'll look a lot better when it's all one colour!



Final shot from the side. I was literally soaked from the sweat that was coming off, and it wasn't nearly as hot as it was yesterday or the day before.

[Cuda Cody]

Looks good!   

I have a question.... (I have not done any body work yet, so this might be a dumb question)

Why do you drill one side of the panel to do a spot weld?  Is it becuase you're using a MIG welder instead of a spot welder?

Why not use a spot welder?  How big of a spot welder would be needed to go thoough those panels?

[rtgambit]

Looks good!   

I have a question.... (I have not done any body work yet, so this might be a dumb question)

Why do you drill one side of the panel to do a spot weld?  Is it becuase you're using a MIG welder instead of a spot welder?

Why not use a spot welder?  How big of a spot welder would be needed to go thoough those panels?

Remember, there are no dumb questions! Yes, I'm using a MIG welder. I'm sure a spot welder would be a lot quicker, but it might be a bit harder to get one into some sections on the car. Plus a MIG is a lot more versatile for other types of welds, so I'm just as far along using this.

[willhaven]

I'd guess that most spot welders wouldn't do most of the welds required for that kind of work right? Getting both of the tongs around both sides of the panel seems next to impossible.

I used a spot welder in the 7th and 8th grade. That's all I know.

Is there some sort of all-in-one type of welder? I guess some are electric, some are powered by gas?

[Cuda Cody]

Too funny.... 7th grade is the last time I used a spot welder also.

The trunk extentions look like a standard spot welder would work great.  The miller LMSW 52 has some good specs for around $500.....

LMSW Models weld up to 3/16 in (4.8 mm) total material thickness or two pieces of 16 gauge (3 mm) galvanized metal.

I would think that the sheet metal is only 18 gauge, so that spot welder should work on the extentions... right?

http://www.millerwelds.com/products/spotwelders/msw_and_lmsw__air-cooled_/

I'd guess that most spot welders wouldn't do most of the welds required for that kind of work right? Getting both of the tongs around both sides of the panel seems next to impossible.

I used a spot welder in the 7th and 8th grade. That's all I know.

Is there some sort of all-in-one type of welder? I guess some are electric, some are powered by gas?

[Street_Challenged73]

Your progress looks awesome, RTGambit!!!  You've definitely saved that car from certain demolition had someone else found all that rot.  Way to save it!!!

[gomopar440]

Glad it came out ok. Here's a before and after pic of my driver side quarter that shows what I was talking about. When we were holding the new panel up against the existing metal we ended up pushing it inward DOH! Cut, push out, reweld, and all is now good again. 

Before. OOPS!
http://www.moparnuts.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3413&d=1148868688

After. Much Better!
http://www.moparnuts.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3421&d=1148963553


I'm just glad I don't have to look at it like this anymore...
http://www.moparnuts.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1703&d=1127622461

[rtgambit]

Glad it came out ok. Here's a before and after pic of my driver side quarter that shows what I was talking about. When we were holding the new panel up against the existing metal we ended up pushing it inward DOH! Cut, push out, reweld, and all is now good again. 

Before. OOPS!
http://www.moparnuts.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3413&d=1148868688

After. Much Better!
http://www.moparnuts.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3421&d=1148963553


I'm just glad I don't have to look at it like this anymore...
http://www.moparnuts.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1703&d=1127622461

Holy moley! Talk about major surgery!  After seeing that I'm actually happy with the amount of rust on my car!

[HemiDog]

CODY that spot welder looks pretty good, but NOTE: "Tongs and tips must be ordered separately. One standard set of tips is supplied with each set of tongs."  That is going to add another $100 to $150 to the price.
With the varitey of thongs, you should find a pair to get the hard to get places.

rtgambit you might want to make sure your rear valence will match up to your quarters.  When I put mine up, I found that the one quarter that I didn't do, didn't align correctly.  I had to break all the welds to the inner trunk extention to fix it and that wasn't fun.