BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”

No rest for the wicked, already onto something new.





















Building these out of metal, obviously because the one was broken and missing, but also because they typically fit terribly from the factory, and I plan on welding them directly to the quarter panels for a cleaner look. This’ll eliminate yet another unsightly seam and still actually weigh less than the originals.

The first attempt to make them out of a single piece was less than successful, so they’ll be individually cut and formed then welded together as you see above. They’re actually quite a complex little piece with multiple conflicting curves.

Stay tuned to see how these turn out…

D.

Getting this pretty much fleshed out now. It doesn’t look much different than the above pictures from before, but a lot of time was spent today dialing in the shapes, angles and gaps.

I got to put my El Cheapo English wheel to use finally, I’m not very good at it yet, but I managed to accomplish what I set out to do with it. It was the perfect tool to use to put the concave curves in both directions on the side piece.

You can see the shiny finish created by the wheel stretching the metal:



You’ll also notice the absence of magnets now, I had to tack weld it to the quarter to be able to build off it. It will ultimately have to get fully welded off the car before welding it to the quarter permanently, but I’m going to try to do the majority of the welding and grinding with it on. This’ll prevent it from moving around and distorting too much with the heat.



I elected to make a new, bigger inside side piece that fits better and will have much tighter gaps than the factory piece.



I’m using 3/16” solid round bar to create a smooth rolled finish on the edges. Can’t just leave it as a sharp sheetmetal edge. You can see it on the bottom of the inside piece through the opening here:



I’ve got the top piece already cut out, but I need to spend a little time shaping it on the English wheel first to get it to fit nicely before tacking it on.

This is going to be a slick little modification!

The first steel quarter panel extension is progressing nicely.







I’m almost to the point where I’m ready to cut it back off the quarter panel to finish welding the sheetmetal to the round stock. The bottom edge of the side piece needs a little trimming and squaring up to the quarter and the gaps will get fine tuned when they get permanently welded in, but that’s fairly minor.

Quite a bit of progress has been made since the last update. Unfortunately sometimes you have to take a few steps back to move forward, and we’ll talk about how this all plays into this update.

I wasn’t happy with how the body line that extends across the top of the metal quarter extension I built turned out, it dove down too abruptly and just didn’t look right. But before I could correct this, I needed to backtrack and do something I should’ve done to begin with:

Revisit the alignments and adjustments of everything on the entire back end of the car.

As luck and timing would have it, Mike was able to come over one Sunday, and together we spent the entire day starting from scratch improving the fitment of all the panels and pieces.

We started by centering the trunk lid in the opening, only very minute adjustments were needed here as the gaps are only about 5/32’s per side. From there, we next adjusted the lid fore and aft. We first did this with the hydraulic support struts removed (I eliminated the factory torsion rods long ago to make room for the air management system), but this resulted in a little unwanted movement up and down at the front of the trunk lid due to no tension on the hinges.

So we next reattached the struts and adjusted again to compensate for the pressure difference, then squared up the lid once more. The best way to gauge this was to compare it to the taillight bezels, which is where we noticed the next issue.

The taillights were not only not the same angle from side to side, but they also weren’t square to the body. The driver’s side was the most out of whack, it stuck out further on the right side of the light than the left when viewed from above. So incredibly strange, as this car has never been hit, nor is there any adjustment in the light mounting. The only thing I can think of is that the entire rear panel was welded on slightly twisted from the factory.

Yay malaise era manufacturing, assembly and QC.
🙄

Some percussive “persuasion” was selectively applied to the driver’s side to get as much “in” movement out of it as possible, and the rest was done by shimming the taillight housings between the body and housing. From there, the bezel needed some slight trimming as it started to interfere with the tail panel. This squared up the lights to the trunk lid properly, and got the angles of both lights equal to each other.

Somewhere in there, we also adjusted the trunk latch, we got the whole lid to sit quite a bit further down and seal to the weatherstripping beautifully. It compresses the stripping just slightly without being difficult to close.
Good thing Mike is small in stature, he was kind enough to volunteer to climb inside with a flashlight and adjust the latch from inside while I kept the lid in perfect alignment from the outside. This of course required adjusting the trunk bump stops, which in turn tightened up the gaps to the taillights quite nicely.

The following pictures are post-adjustments, suffice to say the results are quite dramatic in person from what we started with:



Note how poorly the factory plastic quarter extension fits now that the gaps have been tightened up and improved. I had the same issue with these on Project Olds Cool, I’ve never seen a factory set that fit well:



Yes, the trunk lid is sitting slightly further back than normal, that is because of the compression of the hydraulic struts pushing back against it. This will be a non-issue to the filler panel that sits behind the back window because that will be positioned to compensate when it gets welded in as well.
It actually looks better this way as it makes the lights not protrude out as far and looks more refined IMO:



This is looking from above at the alignment in relation to the taillight and bezel. This is the passenger’s side, it needed some slight shimming, but the driver’s side was much MUCH worse:



Here are the gaps from side to side in the opening, looking equal and beautiful now. It looks wider at the back, but that is only because of the paint that I’ve removed from that area:



Again, look at how poorly the quarter extension fits stock. This is why I’m choosing to make my own, and out of metal so they can be welded in as one piece as part of the quarter panels:



A look at the passenger’s side, from the side. Note that the lid is curved the same as the quarter and does not sit proud nor low:



This next picture is slightly deceiving, the lid appears to sit proud from this angle but actually does not. It does however have a bit of a flat spot just ahead of where the Battery Tender cord is coming out. It does not follow the contour of the quarter as nicely, and will get addressed when bodywork on the trunk lid begins:



The gap is nice though…



At the front of the driver’s side, it would appear that the front corner is sitting proud to the quarter. This is an optical illusion however, it is not. What is happening is that the top edge of the quarter panel is gradually rolling away from the trunk lid creating a larger gap that is more easily visible from the side.

Note the “0.140” writing I put on the top of the quarter panel in the previous picture, this is the measurement at that spot and where the gap really starts to open up.
This will be Mike’s project to work on during garage days this year, he is going to have to add weld to that edge and file back to achieve the desired gap.



Here’s the proof that the lid isn’t sitting proud, and that it’s the edge of the quarter panel that is the problem:



So getting back to backtracking, I had to cut and section my newly made driver’s side extension piece to properly align with the new adjustments. This is such a critical little area, so many different angles all need to align and correspond with each other.

Three strong magnets, one on each plane, held everything in alignment. One on the bottom of the lid to align to the bottom of the extension for the taillight opening, one across the face of the lid to keep it on the same plane across the back, and the third to keep it aligned with the rest of the extension:





The piece was very carefully tacked in place by selectively choosing just the right places to tack, and then removing a magnet, tacking again, and repeating until it was positioned.



Fast forward through the welding, grinding and metal finishing steps, and we now have the revised finished product. Note that the body line across the top looks much more natural now:





It’s especially evident here where it lines up with the body line on the trunk lid:



Also note how nice the gaps are around the taillight in the previous picture. I guarantee the guys that have ‘78-80 Cutlasses will be looking at their own cars in this area a lot closer after reading this!





In preparation for building the metal extension for the driver’s side, I stripped back some of the old paint on the edge of the quarter and found a nasty little surprise hiding underneath the paint and primer:



Ugly little rust spot that the bodyman I had work on the quarter panels a long time ago had buried without addressing:
😡



Thankfully it wasn’t that advanced, and I was able to fully remove it with some careful and selective material removal:





Fast forward through building the extension for the driver’s side, and it’s all starting to come together and looking good!



Don’t mind the additional length at the bottom of the extension in this next picture, I hadn’t trimmed it back and welded in the round stock to finish off the edge yet. That has since been done.





So now I’m officially done with the fabrication portion of the quarter panel extensions, they have since been cut back off, the backsides cleaned and scuffed, and are now ready for a coat of epoxy to be brushed on. Once that is done, I will seam seal all the welded edges and set them aside for several weeks to allow the sealer to cure and do any shrinking it might do.

Once those weeks have passed and I’m confident it’s as cured as it’s going to get, I will spray another coat of epoxy over the first and seam sealer prior to welding them onto the quarter panels. Once they’re welded on, the backsides will be inaccessible so the work to protect them from corrosion needs to be done now ahead of time.

That’s all for now guys, if you’re still following along after this long winded post, thank you!
Until next time,

D.