BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

[Rktpwrd]

With the old paint and primer stripped off, this is what I was looking at:

Doesn't look too bad, right? After a little grinding to the areas, things got a lot worse. The blistered and rusty areas are actually perforated through.

These pics are in progression, as I move front to back:

The last hole in the progression towards the rear I might be able to get away with grinding out bigger and welding up, as it's quite a ways away from the rest of the damaged areas, but most will require cutting out and welding in one or more patches.

Especially this area. It's Swiss cheese, all these little pin holes tells me the backside is rotten, and no good:

The rear most hole:

It's about 6" away from the rest, I MIGHT be able to get away with trying to weld this one up. Not holding my breath tho.

It's really tough to get a good pic of it, but here's the entire affected area:

Oh well. Better to find it now, than once I'm in the middle of the filler and blocking work.

Earlier last week when I was stripping the paint and primer out of the quarter window opening, I found this little gem hiding below.
A nasty dent.
This area is covered and protected by the thick chrome quarter window trim, the only way it could've gotten there is if it left the assembly line that way!

No worries, I have the means to fix that right up!
😀

I broke out the UniSpotter (yes, I have a UniSpotter!), and welded a couple studs to the deepest part of the dent, and pulled it out.

Grand total time to fix it? About 5 minutes. Jeez, you think the factory could've at least spent that amount of time to fix it properly instead of just covering it up!

Anyways, here's the same area, after the dent was removed:

And that's all I got for now.
I'm officially on holidays all this week now, so I'll be logging some serious hours on the car over the next couple days.

Updates to follow as always!

Thanks for checking back everyone.

D.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Holy cow, that is beautiful work!

Thank you!

 

[liquidh8]

Glad you found those pin holes. I had the same issue with the wagon, I had a ton of rust holes from the rear.
I also have a stud welder, nice tool to have.


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[Canon_Mutant]

Yeah, sad in a way that, by the Gbody years, "quality control" was generally "deployed" to the oxymoron level. If it is going to be under the landau or a molding, don't worry about it. But then there is the story I think I shared on another thread where my 442 actually showed up with so many runs in the silver that it literally had paint stalactites hanging down all along the bottom of both sides. I told them to send it back and do it right or make me another one . . . the area factory rep actually laughed and said "um, we don't do that!" You'll never see it again and since they only made 4208 and they are all spoken for, it's this one you ordered or none at all. So, they stripped it down at the dealer body shop and repainted the entire lower body. Then there is that funky plastic cover under the dash that fell down on my feet while I was driving home, the 12mm socket on a 3" extension infamous door rattle the dealer could never duplicate [on and on] to just here in recent weeks realizing that I have a completely bastardized 8.5" rear end that they apparently kludged together. SAE center with metric tubes, etc.

But, I have managed over the years to fix all of the muck ups I've found to date, have an engine appropriate for a 442 under the hood now and . . .
now if I can manage to get it to actually turn and stop too . . .

Just glad you are saving this one and doing it right. There are reputable shops and even a couple of popular TV customizing shows that would have broken out the Bondo several pages ago . . .

 

[Rktpwrd]

Glad you found those pin holes. I had the same issue with the wagon, I had a ton of rust holes from the rear.
I also have a stud welder, nice tool to have.


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Thanks Jim.
I wish I could agree with you in being glad I found those pin holes, but the reality is, it's just more work. Work I wasn't anticipating. (See tonight's update).
As we all know these things have a way of snowballing on us, and this is exactly how it happens.
Now, rather than hoping to get away with having a "rolling restoration", the sobering fact is, I'm now looking at a complete repaint, and probably a partial restoration.
Not exactly what I was hoping for.
But alas, I'm in this far, no choice but to keep going or abandon it all together.
Momma didn't raise no quitter, so you know what my choice will be...

Yeah, sad in a way that, by the Gbody years, "quality control" was generally "deployed" to the oxymoron level. If it is going to be under the landau or a molding, don't worry about it. But then there is the story I think I shared on another thread where my 442 actually showed up with so many runs in the silver that it literally had paint stalactites hanging down all along the bottom of both sides. I told them to send it back and do it right or make me another one . . . the area factory rep actually laughed and said "um, we don't do that!" You'll never see it again and since they only made 4208 and they are all spoken for, it's this one you ordered or none at all. So, they stripped it down at the dealer body shop and repainted the entire lower body. Then there is that funky plastic cover under the dash that fell down on my feet while I was driving home, the 12mm socket on a 3" extension infamous door rattle the dealer could never duplicate [on and on] to just here in recent weeks realizing that I have a completely bastardized 8.5" rear end that they apparently kludged together. SAE center with metric tubes, etc.

But, I have managed over the years to fix all of the muck ups I've found to date, have an engine appropriate for a 442 under the hood now and . . .
now if I can manage to get it to actually turn and stop too . . .

Just glad you are saving this one and doing it right. There are reputable shops and even a couple of popular TV customizing shows that would have broken out the Bondo several pages ago . . .

Thanks Canon, I appreciate your input and relating your "new car" experiences.

I've followed your thread on your 442 from day one, and you're definitely going about it the right way, even if it does include 3 or 4 steps back at times.
I think your 442 and my Juggernaut have a lot in common. We both are running the 455 Olds', we both want them to turn and stop, and handle. I plan on flogging it at autocross courses when it's done too.

Hang in there, and keep plugging away at it. It'll get there.

Thanks for the comments comparing me to the tv show repair guys. That made me smile, and means a lot.

Donovan

 

[Rktpwrd]

Today, I started off by completing shaping the rear window/roof corner work that I started yesterday.

Here it is finished, with the moulding held up beside it:

I also addressed a couple other little areas such as welding up and grinding down the last few holes above the back window. Nothing really noteworthy for pics.

With the last of the metal work done to convert the car to a hardtop, I focused my attention to what kept me awake last night: The pinholes I found above the passenger side window.
I just had a bad feeling about it. Mostly due to the length of the patch I'd need to make and all the welding it would entail. Little did I know my intuition was right, but for a different reason...

Starting with the rogue hole 6" away from the rest, I opened it up to a 1/4" to get it back to some solid metal, then held my breath and hit it with the welder:

As luck would have it, it closed up ok, with no blow through. Thank goodness. I ground the weld flush, and moved onto the other area.

Due to the extent and spread of the perforations, I decided it'd be best just to bite the bullet and cut the whole area out. I knew I was in for some trouble when rust started falling out of the lower cut line.

These are taken in progression like yesterday's post, but from back to front this time. Here's what awaited me:

Yep, pretty bad. Well, downright awful, let's be honest. It was even a bit worse than I had expected.

Here's the extent once the loose rust and flaking paint had been cleared:

I cleaned up and ground out all the visible rust I could possibly see and reach, down to clean bare shiny metal wherever possible. It took hours to do but I guess that's fair, it did take 37 years to get there!

The same area afterwards, as clean as I could get it:

There were still some deep rust pits that just weren't feasible to keep grinding at, so after a thorough blow out and cleaning I masked off the area and hit it with a couple coats of POR 15:

Continued >>>

 

[Rktpwrd]

Using the cut out section as a template, I cut a replacement patch out of some fresh steel, scuffed the backside with red Scotchbrite, and hit it with some weld-thru primer:

The POR 15 needed some time to dry between coats, and before I could proceed with closing it back in, so I got started on tackling the next area.

Diving into the fresh sheetmetal stash again, I cut out a piece and put a 90 degree bend in it with the metal brake.

Up until a couple years ago, what I'm about to show you would have been nearly impossible for me to duplicate. That is, until I got this little beauty:

Some of you may recognize it. It's an Eastwood shrinker/stretcher. I only have the one, I have to interchange the jaws and I don't have the fancy foot pedal attachment for it either, but it still works the same.
One set of jaws shrinks the metal by grabbing it and pulling it together. The other set does the opposite, pulling it apart. This actually moves the metal, allowing you to put a radius into a piece with a 90 degree bend. This is perfect for areas like around the quarter windows.

With less than a dozen strokes of the handle and the stretcher jaws in place, it got me very close to the right shape very quickly:

Here's about the 3rd test fit for the driver's side after tweaking it a bit each time:

A bit more finessing, and lots more test fitting:

Once I was satisfied that the shape was near correct, I traced the patch onto the rusty panel beneath and cut it out:

Lots more test fitting, tweaking, trimming and fine tuning later, I was able to start tacking it in.

As you can see from the side profile, it fits really well.

It is crucial at this stage that this piece fits as well as possible. I plan on repairing this whole area in three separate sections:

This one first, making up the inner edge and ledge.
Then the flat section that tapers back up, and in behind the quarter window moulding.
And lastly, the outer quarter panel skin.

There's probably multiple ways of doing it, but however you look at it, it's a difficult area to repair from scratch without a donor section from another car. This is the way I think I can make it work best with what I have.

Here's a look at the backside of the patch where it ties into the existing structure. It's just multiple tack welds to hold everything firmly in place for now, this will get fully welded before I'm through.

That's it for now guys. I'm outta time and room for pics today, I'll pick right back up on it again tomorrow morning.

Thanks all, for checking back as regularly as you do!

D.

 

[Texas82GP]

Awesome work Donovan! I was really wowed by the work with the shrinker/stretcher. Were/are you a metal fabricator by trade?

Hang in there on the scope of the project. You're still in control on that. I'm not sure that I see a lot of difference in scope, painting wise that was brought on by the unexpected patch. What has canged your thinking?

Momma didn't raise no quitter, so you know what my choice will be...

Love it! That's where we were at when we found all the bondo and the sins beneath it on Sean's car.

 

[liquidh8]

Man that sucks to have to find that, but at least it was now and not later, that how my wagon started.

The shrinker stretcher is a wonderful tool, I've used the crap out of mine.

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[ssn696]

Donavon,

I just made my kids late for summer camp binge-watching this thread. You are doing some amazing work here. I gave up on a coupe 20 years ago that had an aftermarket top. The bubbas cut the roof rail with a Sawzall and didn't bother welding the roof and frame together, but buried it in padding, vinyl and a million rivets. The rain of course, got in and ate the metal underneath. About nine times now I wish I had kept the car and used more parts from it.

I too am sold on the Eastwood shrinker/stretcher. I mounted mine to a shank that clamps in the bench vise, since it does not get used that much.

All this work - do you do it after your day job? I keep using the excuse that work plus kids = not enough time to do the things I am (was) passionate about. Then I keep thinking that I'll retire and have time to learn this kind of magic. We will see what happens.

Meanwhile, keep up the detailed lessons for us. I REALLY appreciate all the time you have taken to capture photos and explanations for the rest of us.