1981 Malibu Build

[DeltaT]

Nice work, subscribing. It's going to be better quality than the factory produced!

Jim

 

[rodneypierce]

I ended up repairing the channel piece in a way that I really did not want too, but it will have to do. I couldnt get in there to cut that lower piece of channel out, so I cleaned everything up as good as I could, scuffed it all down with 80 grit paper, made a filler panel with the channel piece attached, degreased everything and bonded it together with duraglass. I plan to tack weld in the upper portion and lower portion on the inside. Anyhow, here are a few pictures of the repairs, and the channel repair I just did.

 

[rodneypierce]

And DONE! Looks good enough for this guy! Any small imperfections left will come out of it once I lay down the 4 or 5 coats of 2k primer. Pretty happy with the way it turned out. This car is my first attempt at body work of any kind.

 

[rodneypierce]

Had a buddy come over today and help me get the hood off the car. Its trash anyways, and I plan to get a 4 inch cowl fiberglass hood before its all said and done.

Then i went to town on removing the fenders and core support. Very happy with what I see here. After finding the rust (although common on landau top cars) it has me second guessing myself a little bit on how thoroughly I looked the car over. But what I see here makes me feel a bit better!

 

[rodneypierce]

I also need to remove the doors when Im ready to start spraying paint and primer, as the hinges need new pins put in them.

 

[rodneypierce]

Got the fenders set up today, and got them trimmed. Im planning to run an aftermarket radiator core support from Iceman racing (or build my own, one or the other), and Im not running inner fender wells as Im wanting all of the room I can get for the turbo install, and I also plan to keep A/C on the car as well. Next up I plan to start narrowing the front and rear bumpers.

 

[rodneypierce]

Also got started on narrowing the bumpers. Got the rear cut, welded and ground down. Still need to DA the entire bumper, and apply filler to the bumper. Then should be ready for paint! Plan is to paint them body color.

I decided to narrow them 1 inch per side.

Hope to get to the front bumper tomorrow.

 

[rodneypierce]

Got the front bumper narrowed today. Also got both of them DA'd with 80 grit and got etch primer and filler applied to the rear bumper. Need probably one more light coat of filler and it will be ready for primer and paint. Ran out of etch primer, so will start on filling the front bumper when I pick up some more.

I decided to do the front a little different. I still cut the same 1 inch out of it, but instead of welding it from the front and rear, I just lined it up on the front, applied a couple tack welds, then layed a nice heavy bead on it from the back side. My thought on this was to try and minimize any grinding that had to be done on the face of the bumper. As on the back bumper I found that after I ground through the chrome, I had to be very very careful as the bumper metal was softer then the weld, so you got a sort of divet on either side of the weld if that makes sense. (high, low, high, low, high)

 

[rodneypierce]

Front with first coat of light filler.

Rear bumper done and with last coat of high build. Its ready for 2k primer and paint.

 

[rodneypierce]

Front and rear bumpers done and ready for primer/paint!