BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

[Rktpwrd]

Alrighty.

So, as I alluded to in the previous post, I believe I finally have a plan of attack. Or rather 2 plans of attack.

After grinding off the clip mounting studs on the car tonight, I was able to get better access and be able to more thoroughly clean up the vertical part of the front channel.
I've got a solid 1/4" of good un-rusted metal from the roof skin body line down into the channel. I will use this small section to overlap the new piece. This will retain the shape and strength of the roof skin without too much worry of warping once I start welding. Yep, I think I'm gonna weld here. It just seems a smarter idea given the structural stresses this area of the car sees.

I don't necessarily even have to fully weld it the entire length, because it'll be overlapped, I can do several small plug welds and achieve the same strength and result. When it's permanent, but before paint, I will carefully seam seal up the edge.

Another advantage to doing it this way is that because the new piece will be underlapped, there will never be the possibility of water working its way down into the seam.

We will call this "Plan A", and it's the most desirable way to do it in my opinion. It keeps the repair confined to within the channel, and won't require making the repair any larger or complicated than it needs to be.

IF Plan "A" doesn't work out, I'll fall back to "Plan B".
"Plan B" entails flanging either the existing roof skin or the new patch, and panel bonding that joint along with the standard plug welds on the horizontal surface. I'd prefer not to go this route due to the fact that I'd then be getting back into the roof skin. I'd like to try and avoid that if at all possible.

The beauty of having these two plans is that if the first one doesn't work out for whatever reason, I'm not hooped and can still use the second plan.
🙂

Ok, so now that you're all aware of "The Master Plan(s)", here's tonight's progress and pics.

After grinding off the clip studs and cleaning up the top 1/4", I laid out a strip of 1/4" masking tape in the channel flush with the roof edge.
This will be my cutting guide.

Once that was done, I had to remove the lead from the corners. This was done using the same melting it out method as I used on the new patch.

I had to do a little further tear down before I could proceed with this, the weatherstrip, mouldings for them, and the chrome "A" pillar pieces had to be removed first.

I've only done the driver's side so far, but the lead removal process will be repeated again once I get over to the passenger's side.

I don't know if it's like this on other G bodies, but it's actually quite shocking to see just how little actual metal there is in this location once all the lead's gone!
😱

After a little cleanup of the burnt paint, it looks much better:

With the lead gone, I used the body saw (to eliminate any chance of putting additional heat into this area) to cut along the bottom of my tape line:

I ground down and ground out the metal and the braze where it overlaps in the corner:

After that, I made a second cut in the vertical section near flush to the pinch weld flange. This lets me remove the thin strip of metal in there and make it easier to get the spot welded portion out.

Here's the area as I'm going along, grinding out the spot welds and stripping the rusty crap out:

And that's where I'm at for tonight. I'll continue removing the last remnants of rusty flange in this manner until I'm done tomorrow night.

There may not have been much actual progress tonight, but I sure feel a whole lot better and more confident now that I have a direction and plan. I have a good feeling about this, I think it'll work out great.

Thanks very much everyone for the encouragement, confidence, suggestions, and ideas. You guys truly are the best.

Donovan

 

[1evilregal]

just cutting the hole on the top channel on the Chief was nerve racking enough for me... if I had to do what you're doing now would probably cause me to have a nervous breakdown!😵 glad you're getting it done!

 

[Blake442]

This is the Uni-Spotter kit that I have.

In the lower right corner you can see the collar extension that kind of looks like a duck bill, to the right is the electrode extension.
The very bottom is the shrinking tip, but in the 9 o'clock spot is the tip for the trim studs.
The notches in the collar extension allow you to position the gun right up against the edge to weld in the trim stud.
These, along with the included box of studs, is what I used to add the studs around the 1/4 windows on my wagon.
Should be what you need for your windshield and rear window moldings. Hope that helps.

 

[liquidh8]

I have the exact same one as Blake, awesome tool to have.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

 

[Texas82GP]

Because I've never done it before, could you please elaborate on how you and Sean did it on his car?
Did you use the standard studs that are used with the slide hammer, or are there specific studs you can buy to weld in place?

Sorry for the slow response. I see Blake has already answered. Our stud gun is a Magna Spot. We bought it from TCP Global. It came with the tip and the trim rivets. Since Blake's Uni-Spotter did as well I'm guessing you should be able to source the tip and a bag of rivets for yours. Hope this helps. I'm looking forward to the next update.

 

[Rktpwrd]

This is the Uni-Spotter kit that I have.

In the lower right corner you can see the collar extension that kind of looks like a duck bill, to the right is the electrode extension.
The very bottom is the shrinking tip, but in the 9 o'clock spot is the tip for the trim studs.
The notches in the collar extension allow you to position the gun right up against the edge to weld in the trim stud.
These, along with the included box of studs, is what I used to add the studs around the 1/4 windows on my wagon.
Should be what you need for your windshield and rear window moldings. Hope that helps.

Sorry for the slow response. I see Blake has already answered. Our stud gun is a Magna Spot. We bought it from TCP Global. It came with the tip and the trim rivets. Since Blake's Uni-Spotter did as well I'm guessing you should be able to source the tip and a bag of rivets for yours. Hope this helps. I'm looking forward to the next update.

That helps immensely gentlemen, thank you!

I bought my UniSpotter used from a friend that works in a body shop when they were looking to retire some of their old equipment and buy new stuff.

My kit has most of the attachments that it's supposed to have, including the shrinking tip, slide hammer and a couple other attachments. I'll have to check again, but I'm pretty sure it has the collar extension but possibly not the electrode extension to use with it.

It also doesn't have the small hand stud puller or the rivets shown in the pic. I'll have to check with my body shop supplier to see if they can get me some now that I know what I need.
Dealing with a couple missing parts from my kit is a small price to pay for getting it for such a great deal.

These appear to be the rivets, I found this pic on the interwebs:

I'm assuming that "1003" part number is good?

Thanks again guys for the education and direction. I really appreciate it.

 

[Rktpwrd]

I've been making some steady progress over the last couple of nights. Slow, but steady nonetheless.

Picking up from the last update, I finished grinding and drilling out the rest of the spot welds on the horizontal part of the windshield channel.

Goodbye to the last of the rusty flange...

...Hello big open hole!

With that done on the car side of things, I turned my attention back to the patch piece from the 442.
I trimmed off everything that wasn't needed until essentially all I was left with was the "L" shaped portion of the windshield channel itself:

It was necessary to cut the patch in half (good call Quinn!) to physically fit it in place, here's the driver's side mocked up:

This is where I decided to modify my original plan a little bit.
After mocking the pieces in place, I became concerned that having the lip of the roof only overlapping the patch might place the clips for the upper windshield moulding too far inwards. Probably not much at only the thickness of the sheetmetal, but it could be a concern with how tight the mouldings are designed to fit.
Not wanting to risk it, the obvious option became to flange the very top lip of the patch so that it would sit flush with the outer skin once it was in place.

I wasn't able to use the flanging dies in my bead roller to create the step I needed because the trim rivets interfered with the dies.

Time to get creative.

I have a combination punch/flanging air tool that, up to this point, I've only used for punching holes for plug welds. The flanging part of the tool works ok, but I've never really found a need for it.
Until now.
Securing it in the vice, it left my hands free to manipulate the patch:

During its previous mockup, I had clamped the roof skin down over the patch to ensure it was in the right place, and traced the line of the skin onto the patch.
It's shown here in blue Sharpie:

Working methodically, I ran the patch through the flanger along my line:

Here's the result; a roughly 1/4" step in the patch along the top edge:

Time for another mockup and test fit!

Continued >>>

 

[Rktpwrd]

Another view of the "now flanged" channel test fit in place:

Satisfied with the test fit and convinced that it was going to work well, everything came back out again and the opening was masked off for an application of weld-thru primer:

Ditto with the patch pieces, only on these, all but the top 1/4" that got flanged on the front got masked off. The backsides were primed completely:

I'm only looking for protection on the inaccessible areas once it's in place at this point, that's why only the top bit was primed.

Time for the final fitup. I'm pretty sure I used nearly every set of clamps and vise grips I own in this pic!

Starting from the center and working my way outwards, I began spot welding the overlap section where the roof skin meets the patch pieces at the flange line. Using the old spot weld holes in the horizontal part of the pieces as a reference, I placed a weld in between every one of those along the seam. This spaced the welds relatively evenly:

This is all the welding I will do along this seam. There's really no reason to fully weld the seam all the way across, it just has to hold the roof skin in proper alignment with the patch pieces. Once the welds are ground flush, I will protect the seam with some epoxy primer first, then seal off the seam with seam sealer worked into the gaps.
Once that's done, I'll sand the seam sealer flush, and the repair should be all but invisible.

I still have to plug weld the lower part of the channel pieces to the roof structure underneath, but the corners are all but done already. I just ran outta time tonight.

For better or worse, the patch pieces are now officially part of the car! I'm well on my way to wrapping this difficult section up.

Thanks for checking back everyone, have a great weekend!

Donovan

 

[1evilregal]

excellent work as always, Donovan!

as you know, with your step-by-step posts, I've become a bit more comfortable with what I'll attempt on the Chief.... EXCEPT THAT!!! I don't think I'd have the intestinal fortitude to try that!

Darin

 

[Texas82GP]

Awesome repair Donovan! Quick question: What is the purpose of the clamps in the sunroof opening?