Thread: 1965 Fairlane build

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Got the repaired piece all cleaned up in the sandblaster, and the car prepped for it to go in.











Here's the plug weld holes drilled, ready for the welder to be fired up:

















There we go.....that should hold paint for awhile

Here's an area with a bit of bondo in it, always worth further investigation. Once removed, it showed the damage. This is a 1965 vintage, so probably lucky there isn't more to deal with than this. Someone's version of a previous repair involves banging in the rust holes and covering up the mess with body filler. We'll try to do one step better than that, install new metal.




Here's the point of no return, hope I can bend up a replacement!





Started off with a piece of steel, laid out the rough size and bend lines, then trimmed up a bit.....









Made a new radius die to match the bottom bend on the original piece....





Made some bends along both sides, not too much at first. Need to get in there with the Lancaster shrinker, which won't tolerate too much of a crease in the corner.









Keep progressing along, bend a bit more, shrink some more, etc...







Once you have the basic shape, then use the shrinker along the wheel opening flange on front to get the same contour as the original. Then I used the large radius die again to add this same contour across the whole patch panel by giving a slight bend (real slight), moving about a quarter inch, repeat, etc.... The radius in the corner was trimmed slightly different from stock to provide a bit more room for the rear tires. The other side will be trimmed to match.







Installing the patch panel













Much better!

For some reason, drip rails don't tend to like me. This is the second car in a row needing drip rail repairs.











Using the cut-off wheel to grind/remove the spot welds.




Dominoes, anyone?











Looking at the rust just above the drip rail, it looks like it is up into the roof panel as well.





The first order of business will be to remove the leaded seam to expose the lapped joint between the two panels. A soft flame on the acetylene torch and a wire brush makes short work of it.





The closer I stay to the crease of the leading edge of the sail panel, the less the metal should move. A quick check of the back side shows that, although it will be tight, I can get a dolly in there. The top piece is marked a bit larger, to give room for welding and grinding the seam for the repair panel below it.





An ice pick and a bit of grinding will show the extent of the damage, and let us know how far up we need to go for good metal. I did have to trim the top opening a bit more.





....and before we get too carried away with the cut off wheel, let's mark some reference lines so the new piece will go back in the same spot.





Opening up the tin can....also will need to grind away the spot welds holding it to the inner sail panel.











In bending up the new piece, there needs to be a joggle just above the drip rail.





The machine you see in the background here is actually what I should be using, but I think it would take longer to make the dies than what I have in shop time this evening.





So we'll cheat, especially since I found a flat bar in the scrap pile just the right width.....











Some hammer work on the welding table will reform the end, and then we can trim and test fit this piece. Still need to trim a bit more to match my reference marks, but it's real close. And as it's late, we'll have to put off welding until tomorrow.

It took a bit more trimming to get the measurements right to the reference line, and then the patch could be tacked in place.

















And then to fabricate the roof repair....








A hammer and large diameter punch will do wonders on a 2 x 4 block.





Test fit:





Well today was a good time for practicing bends for drip rails.

The last one I did for a 55 Chevy. A quick glance at the profile shows a slight kick up on the bottom just inside the face of the drip rail......





Where my replacement came straight across the bottom...........





Now I'll be the first to admit there's always room for improvement, and the gutter fabrication was one of them. I remembered the Pullmax Lockformer tooling I had bought off Ebay a couple years back. In looking at the tooling, I thought it may just work.





I made a pass with a piece of scrap 18 ga................





Marked and trimmed the top edge for the hem............











The hem gets flattened out..........





..........and is inserted headfirst into the apron brake. The apron clamps down just inside the tooling mark you see





A finished sample, and comparison to the old original:








Yeah, I like that much better....