Drip rail removal?
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Unless you're in the automotive field it's a waste of time to 'learn' bodywork so the correct answer is find a body man with years of experience whose work you've seen and go to the shop. A lot of guys who already have experience in the field will object but seriously; I do want to learn engine stuff and suspension stuff but I'm just not interested in learning bodywork. If you want to learn bodywork, go for it. Rip the drip edges off, any idiot can do that part. It's covering up the damage afterwards that's difficult, something that takes an experienced person a few hours to knock out will take you an entire day. If you don't believe it try to do this work yourself and watch; it will seem like its going to take a few hours to do as you're getting started, but then somehow just like any bodywork attempt by a person with a lack of experience it will totally end up taking your entire day up somehow I guarantee it. Anyway, thats just my opinion on bodywork. Just because I don't want to risk screwing up the aesthetics on my car doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a go.
Pencero is correct in a way. Body work really is an art in itself and it takes years of experience and practice to know what you're doing. Bodywork is also completely different today than it was 25 years or so ago. 25 years ago body work was pounding out fenders, brazing pinholes and painting in lacquer. Anymore bodywork is just knowing how to take cars apart and how to paint, all body men do anymore is change parts and paint them. Dents aren't pounded out, rather the panel is just replaced. Parts are painted in Urethane and now some shops are converting to water-based.
Anyway to remove the drip rails, you have to pull out the weatherstrip door seal, and there are screws inside the rail that holds the weatherstrip in. Take those screws out, remove the rail, and there are more screws behind that rail that hold the actual drip rail in. Take those screws out, and then the drip rail should be able to be popped out.
Anyway to remove the drip rails, you have to pull out the weatherstrip door seal, and there are screws inside the rail that holds the weatherstrip in. Take those screws out, remove the rail, and there are more screws behind that rail that hold the actual drip rail in. Take those screws out, and then the drip rail should be able to be popped out.
Yo I already know where this is going to go right, but before guys can show up to object that I told you not to try to do it yourself, just consider this; you want to remove the drip edges most likely so the car is going to 'look' better right? So you're asking 'how do I take them off and cover up the damage' - but that implies you don't already know how to even get started. Is the car going to actually look better if you tackle this aesthetic improvement? I'd give it 50/50 odds of coming out satisfactory. Not very good odds. I'm all for experimenting on my Cutlass, but when it comes to experiments I'm keeping mine under the hood. At least if I **** up there the cars comes to a grinding halt but it still looks the same aesthetically and I can just work on this problem. It's hard to find another good looking body again. You can replace anything you break under the hood for less than $1,000 but the bodies are really the only part of the car not being re manufactured at this time. I have tackled some newer cars bodywork with mixed results b/c fk those boring *ss cars w/ their stupid plastic bodies and plastic screws, but yeah 5 -10 years ago there were so many body parts it would sound stupid to tell guys not to try learning bodywork on a g-body but bodies and body parts are starting to get really thin everywhere now. I can think of several good running g-bodies in town 'for sale' right now and nobody is buying them - because they need bodywork! And there is always more rust than it looked like there was going to be when you start doing bodywork on a g-body. Always. Orange sh*t pussing off the edges of the metal for hours. It always ends up taking twice as long to do any bodywork as a newer car might have taken... Once you start there's no going back or the exposed metal is oxidizing rapidly before your very eyes and you have a limited time to get it back in paint! After all it is 20+ years old metal...
Yes, thanks Joe thats what I was trying to say exactly. If you go to a new school body shop some Steve will just trash the roof to your car. You need a guy that was in the field at the time these cars were hot, or at least was doing cars late 80s early 90s and encountered this type of bodywork before so it doesn't come out looking trash. To give you another comparison; anyone can stain a deck. Doing newer body work is like deck staining. But not anyone can 'work wood' like literally do oldschool Christ style carpentry and cut bezels into oldschool mirrors. Doing bodywork on a g-body is more like 'art' than it is mechanics. If you want to learn mechanical stuff, don't do bodywork or you will become so angry at it. My best bodywork guys are very literary arts, poetry type guys. When I attempted bodywork I found out it was art. When it comes to how my Cutlass looks I just definitely want to know it's going to look good after my bodywork, not wonder about if it looks good. And it's also hard for an inexperienced untrained eye to tell what good bodywork is anyway. You don't want to end up in a situation where you've already got paint back on the roof and come back the next day horrified at how bad it looks... but if you tackle this and fk up thats what will happen. You'll have a bunch of body work you could clearly see through the paint if you fk it up
Check out the Real Woody Material thread. He deleted the drip rails on an old-school truck project and his method may work for you. The problem is that the drip rail is where GM spot-welded the roof panel to the sail panels. Break that joint carelessly and you can spring the roof and put wrinkes in it and lose the structural integrity of the body.
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