Donovan,
Thanks for taking the time to share your project with us. You work all day, then work on the car until late, then stay up late posting the progress when you could just go in and go to bed. That's dedication. The repair looks terrific. I predict little or no warpage when you weld up the holes since the flange provides a lot of strength and provides additional heat tolerance. A quick question for you: when you were drilling for the Clecos, what was holding the patch in place? Awesome work. Thanks for the awesome write up.
No problem whatsoever Jared.
I've been doing the "work all day, work all night in the garage" thing for several years now, so to spend an additional hour or two at the end of it writing an update for the thread isn't too big a deal.
I'm just glad you and everyone else appreciate it. That makes it all worthwhile.
I hope your prediction of little or no warpage is correct. It would suck to have everything go so well up to this point and then have it go sideways on me at the last minute with the welding. I'm going to be extra slow and careful to manage the heat when I start buzzing them up.
To answer your question, the patch was mostly held in place by being pinched between the roof support and the roof skin along the front edge, and by being above the roof structure at the outer edges.
When I was drilling for the first Cleco, I just made sure to hold it steady until I was through all the pieces. Then I installed the Cleco to keep it from shifting around on me. By the time I had 3 Clecos in, it was solid and I didn't have to worry about any more movement.
Thanks for the encouragement and compliments, I really appreciate it!
The repair looks like it's going as planned. I like those Clecos. Very cool way to hold the sheetmetal pieces together. I'll have to check into getting some of them. You should have this wrapped up pretty soon. So, you've still got to bond the patch to the car, weld up the holes where the Clecos were, clean up the welds, put filler on the repair spot and then clean it up for primer? That doesn't sound too bad.
I love watching your threads. I learn things all the time. Thanks again for taking the time and effort to do such good write-ups and for answering questions.
Thanks brother.
Glad to hear you're picking up some stuff out of the updates.
The Clecos are definitely very cool, and the hot ticket for doing this kind of stuff. I didn't have them available to me locally up until a couple years ago, when a new tool store opened up here. They carry way more fabrication tools and other cool stuff like that than anyone else around. There was always mail order through Eastwood and places like that, but sometimes you just want to be able to touch and feel before you buy!
You're bang on with the procession of steps to come. The only thing extra I'll do is to epoxy prime the exposed roof support before the patch goes in permanently.
Thanks for the kind words my friend!
Curious as to what is the plan for the cleco holes once the panel bond is dry ?
I have seen this stuff used for making a ton of pylon signs. Also used it to replace the rear seat braces / speaker shelf in my car and the lower door skin on my buddys elco as well as some patch panels on a few beaters.
On everything but the elco we used sheet metal screws or pop rivits until the bonding agent had cured. At the sign shop we tried using clecos but getting panel bond on them made them a PIA to get back out and ruined some of them so he now uses a pneumatic pop-rivet gun or tek screws. With the sheet metal / tek screws we would just back the screw out, scotchbrite pad on a drill to clean up the hole and put another dab of panel bond in there. The Elco got a skim coat of fibreglass to seal the holes up. At the sign shop we tried welding the holes up a couple times and sometimes it worked great but on thinner stuff ( like aluminum ) it made a mess.
The patch panel turned out so straight. Any time I would try and run something thru the dies it looks like a drunken sailor for all the wobbles in it 😉
Carry on, it looks great !!!
The plan is to weld the Cleco holes shut. You're not supposed to weld where the adhesive is present anyways, so when I go to apply the adhesive to the flanges on the patch, I'm going to try to keep it roughly a 1/4" or so away from the Cleco holes.
Once welded, the hole in the roof skin will be closed up, but there will be penetration to the patch flange underneath, bonding the two together in that spot anyways. Think of each welded up Cleco hole as being like a spot weld in that particular area.
There is still the possibility that some panel bond may get into the inner workings of the Clecos, but I'm not too concerned about not being able to get them back out at this point.
I used Clecos on my header panel when I bonded the composite headlight buckets into the original header panel a couple years ago. I got panel bond into some of the Clecos then, but I was still able to get them back out after it had cured.
Hopefully if all goes well, there won't be any adhesive in the areas of the holes anyways. If there is, it'll play a bit of havoc with contaminating the weld puddle, which might be a bigger problem.
I think a little planning ahead, a little finesse, and a healthy dose of good luck will determine the final outcome!
As for the straightness of the patch, thank you! I'm still getting used to the machine, but I get a little better each time I use it. My first few tries were exactly like you described, wobbly as all hell. I also find it's easier to get a straighter line with the flanging dies as opposed to the bead rolling dies. Because they're flatter and have more surface area in contact with the panel, the panel doesn't seem to walk around as much.
I find the bead rolling dies WAAAY harder to pull a straight line with!
Thanks for relating your experiences, and offering suggestions. Greatly appreciated!
Okay, here's a question (cart before the horse): How does one fill the void between the roof skin and sail panels after the seam sealer has been removed?
PS. I hate you for being so talented.
Bwahahahahahahahaha
This made me laugh out loud!
Hey man, don't hate the player, hate the game!
😀
I'm gonna cover it in the thread here when I get to that point, but the short answer for now is Tiger Hair. That's what I've always known it as, but it's proper name is "long strand fibreglass repair". If you're not already familiar with it, it's pretty much similar to standard body filler, but with long fibreglass pieces embedded in it. It's recommended for applications where more than 1/4" of filling depth is required .
I used this sequence of steps on The Juggernaut when I converted it to hardtop:
Grind out all the old seam sealer, apply and block out Tiger Hair, follow up with Kitty Hair (short strand fibreglass repair), skim coat regular filler, and putty if needed.
That repair process has held up to frame twisting big block Olds 455 torque, and about 15 or so years so far. The torque from the car has actually wrinkled the repair ever so slightly in those areas, but it's never cracked or failed on me.
An alternative method would be to have it lead filled like the old school guys used to do, but good luck finding anyone that can do that work anymore!
Stay tuned, when I get to that point I'll cover it on here for everyone.
The work is awesome and I think we all have to appreciate how you compose your posts. Question, are you going to do anything with the roof brace as far as treating it or anything?
Thanks very much for the kudos. Glad to do it for everyone.
Yep, I most certainly am. See tonight's update for the answer.
🙂
Looks great!
I would recommend using sheet metal screws when the time comes to glue the patch in...
Like mentioned above, the clecos can get stuck...
Keep up the good work!
Thanks Blake!
As mentioned above, hopefully that won't happen. At least not if all goes according to plan.
I considered using sheetmetal or Tek screws, but the thing I don't like about them is they have a tendency to distort the metal when you tighten them down. Plus, you want to make extra sure the two pieces are tight together when you install the screw, or you can end up with a gap in between, and not even know it.
Easy to fix when you can access both sides of the flange, but no so much so when you can only get to one side...
Either way, the end result will be the same, and that's all that matters.
Good to hear from you sir, thank you!
Kinda like when I weld the locking pliers to the car
Oh, I've NEVER done that...
🙄
Thanks once again for all the great comments and questions. You guys are right on top of this with me, and I really appreciate your suggestions, comments and feedback!
Donovan
Who ever thought a junkyard battery still had that kind of charge.
