BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since the last update already.

Not surprisingly now that the winter season is upon us, I’ve been spending a lot of my free time out in The Skunkworks working on the car. There’s lots to update on, so I’ll try and keep it as condensed as possible.

Unfortunately I had to delete several pictures off my phone to clear up storage space, so several of the pictures of the damaged area and the new pinch weld on the back of the car are missing. These 2 are the best I have, taken well afterwards after the rest of the old paint, primer and seam sealer were removed. Also visible if you look closely is the pinch weld cut down significantly and cleaned up:





Speaking of trimming down and cleaning up, these two pieces were unnecessary, ugly, and in the way of being able to easily access the bumper shock to frame bolts.
So they had to go as well:













While I was in the area, I next tackled the bumper filler panel pockets, they were loaded with seam sealer, filler and paint, plus I found more buried rust pitting underneath it all. I plan on using these pockets for tucking the rear bumper into just like the front, so it was important to make sure they were 100%.



While I was addressing these areas, one Sunday Mike came over and we started to work on the gap between the trunk lid and the driver’s side quarter panel. Here’s a link to a very quick video of the measurements of the gap in thousands of an inch from rear to front, an eye opener for sure!


Now while it would appear that the gap gets bigger from back to front, what was actually happening was that the top of the quarter panel was rolling away from the trunk lid the closer it got to the back window. After some evaluation, we decided that the best way to correct the problem would be to make a relief cut in the top of the quarter and manipulate the edge to where we wanted it. Out of the entire length, only about an inch and a half was within our target spec.

After the cut was made, we worked together to manipulate the edge and tack weld as we went along. Here’s after that process was done:





Here’s that inch and a half that was all that was within spec out of the entire length:



Mike got the majority of the welding and grinding done that same day, but he had left a couple of spots that got missed. I buzzed them up and then set about metal working the area.





Unfortunately he had gotten a little heavy handed with the grinder and I had to spend one entire evening pick and filing up the low spots and massaging the metal. I got it back to my level of expectation though.

Just look at that gap now though!







Next up was to start attaching my scratch built quarter extensions to the quarter panels. I started with the driver’s side, as it was the one of the two that didn’t fit the greatest. Jigging it up in just the right position was the hardest part, as these are extremely complex little pieces that have to align just right on many different planes and angles:



I fought with welding porosity and contamination from factory seam sealer that was in between panels along with a couple other issues, but overall I think it turned out well:















Continued >>>

With the difficult driver’s side done, the process was repeated on the easier, but still complex, passenger’s side.











The only real difference here, was that I wasn’t happy with how the top edge above the taillight aligned with the trunk lid. So I added in more material in the form of weld…



…masked off and Dye-Chem’d the area…



…then scribed the new lines where they needed to be:



After a bit of careful grinding and final hand filing, I had the finished product.













Ok, that’s the pretty stuff, now for the ugly.

I had a feeling that I had better strip back some more of the old paint, primer and filler from around the bumper filler pockets, just to make sure they were 100% usable including the edges.

And good thing I did too.

To backtrack quite a ways in the history of this car, many many years ago I had a bodyman I worked with in a dealership at the time “fix” the rust damaged quarter panels. I pretty much knew at the time that he hadn’t done it properly, as the time he took to do it was just simply way too quick. But being young and interested in a quick turnaround, I accepted it and ran with it.

Well, the days of reckoning are here.

Stripping back another several inches of the passenger’s side quarter panel revealed what I had suspected all along: a backyard hack job.











Note in the above pictures, dents that weren’t even attempted to be fixed, shoddy perimeter welding, and lapped patch panel buried under a mountain of filler.

Definitely not my style, or even right for that matter. There’s a reason I’m redoing this car.

All is not lost though, as I have planned to replace these quarter panels for years now. All I’m really interested in at this point is that the edges of the bumper filler panel pockets are good and usable. Which, after grinding down his crappy welds and a bit of the patch, absolutely are:





Time to turn my attention to fixing some of the stuff he covered up, starting with this ugly dent which I suspect was originally a deep rust blister:



This is a prime spot to utilize a lost and dying autobody art, pick and filing. The low area is “picked” up in several places from the backside with the pointy end of the body hammer, and the outside is filed down making the picked high points flush with the rest of the panel. This process is gradually repeated until the entire low spot has been raised.

I didn’t want this area to be absolutely 100% perfect, just very very close to minimize the amount of filler needed. So once I got it to this point, it was good enough for my needs:





As you can see, it’s very effective, but also extremely time consuming. Note the not-filed angled area, this is where the seam between the quarter panel end and extension are welded together are. This is a perfect example of what’s called “panel dive”, where the ends of panels “dive” inwards to their edges. This area unfortunately is inaccessible from the backside, so it will have to get profiled and skimmed with filler.

Continued >>>

Onto the next.

The entire back end of the car kind of needs to be worked as one, so I then turned my attention to the filler panel that sits between the back window and the trunk lid. Interesting useless G Body factoid of the day, all 78-80 Cutlass trunk filler panels are aluminum, not steel. Only so much you can do with aluminum, and it didn’t fit in with my plans. So several years ago I had gotten O. D. Showtime Kevin to get me a steel filler panel from an 81-87 Buick Regal.

Test fitting in place revealed that the curvature and shape was correct, but the ends were a little short and tapered differently than the 78-80 panel.











After several nights of sanding, stripping and cleaning up the filler panel, I cut the flanges off the ends and had my donor piece to begin building off of:



Now I had to make a new piece from scratch that exactly matched this profile:



This is what I was able to create, from nothing more than a flat piece of sheetmetal:



This second piece got cut in half, the tapered ends of the panel were cut square, and the weird notches at the window side were marked and cut out.









Next I had to make small pieces to fill in the notches, and began welding the extension pieces to the ends:









After grinding the welds flush and metal finishing, it was close as I could make it:







Repeat the process with the other side and the middle notch, and now I had a longer than needed piece from which to work with.



Which brings us to today. Today I took several measurements to determine the center of the car and trunk lid, then slowly and carefully cut the ends down to the correct profile. Whack the majority of the material off to begin with, then test fit, grind, test fit, grind and repeat until it dropped into place:





The gap is a little tight in the middle in these pictures, but that’s because the supports aren’t yet in place underneath. The gap will correct itself once it’s firmly attached in the middle.



The centerline marks I had made on both the trunk lid and filler panel were within a 1/32” of each other, so I’d consider it a win.



To round out the day, I straightened, tweaked and adjusted the supports and retaining clips, then attached them to the underside of the panel:



I didn’t yet take any pictures of the panel back in place with the supports and clips attached, but this is still very much a work in progress. They will come as I get this figured out.

So why all this trouble and effort into making a later model steel filler panel fit when the stock aluminum one fit to begin with? Because I plan on welding the ends of the filler panel to the inside edges of the quarter panels, making it all one piece and eliminating two more unsightly seams. Thereby correcting a poorly executed design common on all G bodies. To the best of my knowledge, no one else has ever attempted to do this. More on this mod to come.

That’s pretty much all for now, the only other really big news is my most recent purchase. I stumbled upon an eBay listing for an unobtainium NOS right side quarter panel for a 78-80 Cutlass…


Unfortunately the seller was not willing to ship, local pickup in Massachusetts only which is a real problem since I’m in western Canada.

Unphased, I reached out to Bruce (fleming442) in Maryland and Jim 64nailhead in New York as they were the two closest guys I could think of that might be able to help me out. Jim ever so kindly agreed to go out of his way and purchase it, and has agreed to pick it up next weekend and arrange shipping to me. Thanks again Jim!

Now if only I can locate a left side…

D.

Sweet_Johnny said:

It was you! You bought my grille and the quarter panel I found! Kidding aside, it's nice knowing that they're going to a good home even though they're out of my league, and it was fun discovering them and pretending- that part never gets old.

The fact that both purchases were accomplished via the teamwork of forum members speaks volumes about this community. Oh, and the trunk is looking supreme.

Click to expand...

Hey, money talks, the dreamers walk!
Jk. In all honesty, I’m just glad that I’m finally in a position where making purchases like these are now possible, even a couple of years ago it still would have been a pipe dream.

And yes, I owe a great deal of gratitude to the few forum members here that have gone out of their way to help and make it possible to acquire these rare and rapidly disappearing parts. The significance of their assistance is not lost on me I assure you.

Thanks for the compliment on the work that has gone into the back end of the car to this point, although it is somewhat disappointing to see the lack of feedback and engagement from everyone else after all the work that has been done. It seems that fewer and fewer members bother to comment or even like the posts anymore, which in turn makes me not want to keep the thread updated. It’s not hard to see why so many former valued members have left and moved on in recent years.

I get more feedback, suggestions, interest and positive reinforcement from friends and people on other means of media nowadays than on here. Kinda sad really.

old80cs said:

Where in Massachusetts was that quarter panel, Donovan?

Click to expand...

According to the ad, in Spencer?