73 on a slow road to recovery... by Done Yet?

12 minute(s) of a 308 minute read

Tuesday Progress

After work today i put in a little camaro time. I started stripping one of my fenders just to make sure i didnt have any surprises lurking under the paint. I did manage to get the outside stripped, but ran out of daylight and still have all of the jams to strip. And didnt find any hidden treasures ( A good thing)

I was able to get a few small parts painted as well, i couldnt take a pic of everything painted because it was getting dark.

Thanks for stopping by to check out my project Rob

12-20-2010

Thanks Red, The metal was 18-20 gauge, most of the small patches were pieces cut off of my donor car. Wire size .023 with C02/Argon mix i think it is 25% C02 75% Argon if im not mistaken. The Epoxy primer and seam sealer is pictured below, the clear seam sealer is for all seams inside the car, the other is for exterior seams.

Sorry to all of you guys following my project for not having any updates the last few weeks, Trying to get get caught up on everything ive been neglecting around the house to work on my car, The weather hasent been to sporty either, cold and rain on the weekends. And with the holidays a few days out Ive been busy just not on my car  . There is no loss of interest and i look foward to getting back to work on it as soon as possible. Hopefully with two 3 day weekends comming up i will have some updates on the slow

1-1-2011

Inching along....

Well with the holidays i sure didnt get as much car time as i wanted too, But i did manage to put several hours Friday and a good part of today. I began by removing the rest of the pinch welds from the right side quater. I did find two areas on the right side trunk drop off that needed some attention.
First was around the drain plug and second was at the top of the wheel house lip. These two areas were removed and replacement pieces were cut from the donor, once fitted they were welded in place and ground smooth.

Now to the fun stuff welding the two pieces of metal that connect the inner rocker to to the lower support under the tulip panel. I needed to remove these two pieces in order to get the tulip panel to fit into the trunk opening.
This was very time consuming, welding from inside the trunk and from the outside with the quater panel removed. I felt like i climbed in and out of the trunk a dozen times with the welding and grinding what a PITA... Heres a few pics of that work.

In this pic you are looking from inside the trunk at the support i am working on, this pic was taken after the welding and grinding were done.

I also repaired a few small holes that i created with the air hammer while removing the old outer wheel house, and also welded the support under the B-pillar to the top of the new rocker panel while i had access.
If the weather cooperates on Sunday i will be back to work on the Camaro. Thanks for checking up on my project. Rob

1-2-2011

A little more progress for 2011

I started out doing a few touch ups with the welder, And while i had the welder out i welded up the LT moulding holes in the R/S fender and ground them smooth.

Then i began cleaning up all of the metal that hides under the quater panel.
This took a good part of my day today.

Once everything was stripped clean i scuffed the areas in my trunk where i was welding yesterday, Resanded my r/s fender and decklid on one side and also the underside of my r/s outer wheelhouse. The epoxy primer was then mixed and all areas to recieve primer were wiped clean. I filled the paint gun gun and started spraying. You may see some drips and a few runs in the primer, this was due to the fact i had several hard to reach areas that needed to be coated well. I figured it would be best to coat everything good rather than have rust start all over agian, besides the runs and drips sand pretty easy.  Heres a few pics of the painted areas.

With my car sitting outside under a tarp it sure is a good feeling to have all of that bare metal and fresh welds all sealed up. I guess next on the to do list will be to fit the wheel house and quater skin then weld it on the car. That should be the last of the metal replacement on the shell, it is about as rust free as you can get a 38 year old car.

1-8-2011

Some Saturday Updates..

Im surprised it lasted this long, my cut off wheel took a chit last Sunday. I took it appart to try and repair it but once i got inside of it there lots of metal fragments throughout. So i had no choice but to buy a new one for this weekend being it would be a very valuable tool for fitting my r/s 1/4 skin.
Heres the new one that i picked up.

Today i started out by fitting the outer wheel house and holding it in place with a few self tapping screws.

The 1/4 skin was placed ontop of the wheel house to make sure everything lined up good.

Next i started to fit my r/s 1/4 skin Lots of trimming and grinding, put the panel on take it off over and over LOL. Once it was close i indexed a new cut line along the top of the old 1/4 leaving enough metal to flange a seem. The tape was used for my cut line, once cut with the cutoff wheel the primer was removed and the lip on the old 1/4 was flanged.

the rest of these pics are of the fitted skin waiting to be welded into place.

Stay tuned for more progress....

1-10-2011

Afew more updates....

The following is work that was done on Sunday and Monday after work, My trunk lid had some rust at the rear seam. I didnt know if it was fixable or not. So i started to grind out some of the rust with my cutoff wheel and discovered it is to far gone to repair. So i will need to buy a clean rear deck lid if anyone local has one for sale.

I then moved on to my r/s outer wheel house, it was removed from the car and all of the plug weld points were drilled and the epoxy primer removed from both sides and where the welds will contact the inner rocker.

Then the wheel house was fastened to the car and i began to weld it into place.

All welds were then ground down and all of black marks from the welder were cleaned up.

Once the welds were ground down everything in this area of the car was scuffed with a scotch brite pad, cleaned and the sprayed with epoxy primer.

After the primer was dry i seam sealed all of the pinch welds hidden under the quater so it will be dry when the quater skin is welded to the car.

Thanks for stoppin bye to check out my project. Rob