BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”

[melloelky]

Well, no Mike today, apparently he’d rather binge watch Ozark with his ol lady than come play with burning metal. No worries, I got after it late this morning and made shizz happen on my own anyways.

sometimes you gotta kiss a little *ss..

 

[scoti]

sometimes you gotta kiss a little *ss..

And sometimes you abstain from the car stuff to binge watch a tv show w/her just to kiss a little arse 😏

 

[DRIVEN]

Even though this will all inevitably be covered by beautiful paint and carpet, we all saw it. Won't be forgotten.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Even though this will all inevitably be covered by beautiful paint and carpet, we all saw it. Won't be forgotten.

Thanks DRIVEN. Yet another advantage to photographically documenting things as they get done. Eliminates the “yeah, sure ya did”‘s out there.

 

[Ribbedroof]

Mostly for the same reason I didn’t become a mechanic. I love wrenching and building cars, but I knew if I did it every day for a career that wouldn’t be the case for very long.
Nope, I’m content with still loving the hobby BECAUSE I don’t have to do it every day for someone else.

Truer words were never spoken.....

 

[Tony1968]

Pardon me while I drool over that perfect door gap.... Wow 👏 😮

 

[melloelky]

View attachment 192921
Pardon me while I droll over that perfect door gap.... Wow 👏 😮

he doesn't screw around does he?

 

[08Malibu]

Looks great.

 

[motorheadmike]

Well, no Mike today, apparently he’d rather binge watch Ozark with his ol lady than come play with burning metal. No worries, I got after it late this morning and made shizz happen on my own anyways.

Started off by knocking out the rocker panel seam delete…

View attachment 192887

…then dove right in to fixing the ugly upper joint between the two panels. I had put a flange on the bottom edge of the quarter panel thinking that it would make it easier to locate the pass-through insert, and while it gave me something to Cleco to, it royally screwed with the straightness. It had flattened out the area, and to make matters worse, the top half of the insert was quite short and bent inwards at a bad angle.

So to correct this, I cut the upper tack welds and the flange completely out.

View attachment 192889

This left a sizeable gap between the two panels unfortunately:

View attachment 192888

I broke out the UniSpotter and the slide hammer with a large flat 90 degree hook on the end, and started straightening things out.

View attachment 192895

View attachment 192890

View attachment 192891

Once I got things aligned properly, I then began to weld the gap up. DISCLAIMER:
I definitely DO NOT recommend doing this the way I did, usually trying to weld up a gap this large between two panels of the same gauge will result in it pulling inwards and leaving a nasty valley between the two.

However.

I had a couple of things working in my favour, the insert is much heavier gauge steel than the quarter, and the proximity of the upper edge to the welded pipe meant that the area was very strong and wouldn’t move a whole lot.

So I started doing what I call “bridge tacks” (because they bridge the gap), and continued doing so until I had only a 1/4” or so between them. Once that was done, I knocked the tops of all the tacks down almost flush and started welding in the gaps working from the center out.

View attachment 192892

Again, definitely not usually recommended unless you know what you’re doing. Weld, cool, grind, repeat. Weld, cool, grind, repeat. Over and over, probably in the neighborhood of 40 or 50 times. After a couple hours sitting cross legged on the floor repeating this process over and over, I finally had it fully welded.

It had still pulled in a bit (I had anticipated that), so I stitched on another row of porcupine quills in the valley and pulled it out with the slide hammer. A little dressing with 40 grit on the big wheel 8” grinder, and voilà. One side completely done!

View attachment 192893

View attachment 192894

I think it looks killer, and that’s even without the trim bezel or the exhaust pipe back in there yet. This has been a long time coming, and I’m so glad to see it all coming together.

It was another good day.
D.

Damn dude... I would have thought a small strip of 16 gauge would have been the preferred method to address that wide of a gap. I know it works, and being talented/disciplined (is key as you demonstrated/described) - but that seems like a lot of time and material wasted.

I've only ever bridged tacks that wide on exhaust. But, I am a ham-fisted ape.

Understanding that this is a rare instance, and it may never come up again, you may want to look into a TIG as resources allow. The precision afforded will compliment your skills remarkably.

 

[69hurstolds]

D uses a hammer and welder like Gaugin used a paintbrush. That's f**kin' art, dude.

I just use a hammer to f**k sh*t up. Sometimes I do magic tricks where I can f**k sh*t up without a hammer.