BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
Thanks Chris. I guess that’s where we’ll have to respectfully disagree. I’ve always liked the Supreme waterfall grilles much MUCH better than the grandpa 4 door looking Calais grilles. I guess that’s why right there in a nutshell, the Calais grilles remind me too much of the sedan grilles of the same era. I never found them particularly appealing, I even had a hard time keeping them in Olds Cool.
It may give you some comfort to know however, that The Juggernaut is actually a Calais, or at least it started out that way. I despised the Calais header panel and grilles so much that I swapped it out to the Supreme front end very early on in my ownership of it.
But hey, that’s what makes this hobby interesting isn’t it? Endless diversity.
Speaking of diversity, there’s no accounting for taste l guess.
😅
I was actually originally going to post a picture of that ugly-assed ‘vette from “Corvette Summer”, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Too damned fugly.
As a kid, that vette from Corvette summer was awesome. Now, not so much.
I'll just be calling it the baddest first style Gbody cutlass on the planet.
Brief update.
Started picking away at the passenger’s side flare this week, so far I’ve gotten the patch section in the middle welded up. Other than the obvious visible grinder marks, you’d be hard pressed to tell it’s been widened.
There is a bit of rust pitting on the very inside of the lip, most of this I’m not too concerned about, you’ll see why here momentarily. But I did pick up some RustMort rust converter last weekend to neutralize what is there. It’ll get treated here shortly.
Since nobody inquired as to the purpose of the 3/16” round stock that was pictured in the first photo of the first flare post, I’m going to show you what it is for. Starting in the middle of a 3’ piece of it, I started tack welding it inside the inner edge of the wheel opening lip. I chose 3/16” because it’s more robust than 1/8”, yet easier to bend than 1/4”, and still strong.
A couple of needle nose vise grips did very well at holding it tightly in place:
I just continued working my way around the edges from the center out.
Fully formed and tacked into place:
All that rust pitting? With the rod in place, I trimmed off the sheetmetal that extended past the rod. This eliminated most of that pitting that was visible. This leaves a very thin profile when viewed from the edge:
Why? Because I need every millimeter of tire to fender clearance I can get, and the round edge will leave a nice smooth finished profile that won’t cut the tires if the unthinkable should happen.
Quick test fit to make sure nothing moved around on me:
Next was to fully weld the sheetmetal lip to the round stock, a little section at a time.
Tons of tiny tack welds here, followed by equal parts quenching with compressed air to keep everything cool and prevent warping:
Since this last photo was taken, I’ve finished fully welding out the entire length. This is important as we don’t want any way for water to make its way in between the round stock and the sheetmetal.
Next up is to grind and hand file all these little tack welds flat, flush and smooth. Once that’s done, I’ll treat the rust pits, then likely epoxy prime the backside before finally seam sealing the remaining inside edge of the round stock. This will happen before the flare gets welded into the fender.
Lots of hand filing coming up in my near future!
Started picking away at the passenger’s side flare this week, so far I’ve gotten the patch section in the middle welded up. Other than the obvious visible grinder marks, you’d be hard pressed to tell it’s been widened.
There is a bit of rust pitting on the very inside of the lip, most of this I’m not too concerned about, you’ll see why here momentarily. But I did pick up some RustMort rust converter last weekend to neutralize what is there. It’ll get treated here shortly.
Since nobody inquired as to the purpose of the 3/16” round stock that was pictured in the first photo of the first flare post, I’m going to show you what it is for. Starting in the middle of a 3’ piece of it, I started tack welding it inside the inner edge of the wheel opening lip. I chose 3/16” because it’s more robust than 1/8”, yet easier to bend than 1/4”, and still strong.
A couple of needle nose vise grips did very well at holding it tightly in place:
I just continued working my way around the edges from the center out.
Fully formed and tacked into place:
All that rust pitting? With the rod in place, I trimmed off the sheetmetal that extended past the rod. This eliminated most of that pitting that was visible. This leaves a very thin profile when viewed from the edge:
Why? Because I need every millimeter of tire to fender clearance I can get, and the round edge will leave a nice smooth finished profile that won’t cut the tires if the unthinkable should happen.
Quick test fit to make sure nothing moved around on me:
Next was to fully weld the sheetmetal lip to the round stock, a little section at a time.
Tons of tiny tack welds here, followed by equal parts quenching with compressed air to keep everything cool and prevent warping:
Since this last photo was taken, I’ve finished fully welding out the entire length. This is important as we don’t want any way for water to make its way in between the round stock and the sheetmetal.
Next up is to grind and hand file all these little tack welds flat, flush and smooth. Once that’s done, I’ll treat the rust pits, then likely epoxy prime the backside before finally seam sealing the remaining inside edge of the round stock. This will happen before the flare gets welded into the fender.
Lots of hand filing coming up in my near future!
I assume some (like myself) didn't mention the rod before since you're creative enough to do just about anything with it, but as soon as it got mentioned here in this context I knew where you were going. I've never done it from start to finish myself but am familiar with the concept, and it sure beats the hell out of rolling the lips with a bat or just cutting them off and saying "Done". What you've done is smooth, sturdy, and easy to make "purrty". It can also act as a gutter to a slight degree by redirecting dirty water away from constantly dripping straight down onto your wheels, which would occur if the lips were merely removed. It's a cool trick that I've seen butchered more often than not but I'd expect nothing less than stellar from a man of your skill level. A lack of attention to detail is what kills this mod but you've got more of that than most.
Boy, a TIG welder sure would be nice about now- well-yesterday.
Sorry for the late reply guys, I’ve been working out of town on a business trip the past few days and haven’t had a chance to respond.
Thanks for the compliment, I guess I’ve set the bar pretty high for myself. I’ll try not to disappoint.
I can’t take credit for this little mod, it’s something I recall seeing in an old Street Rodder magazine many years ago. It must’ve made a pretty big impression on me, as I’ve stored it away in the back of my mind all these years.
Rollling the edges or cutting them back wouldn’t have been the right choice, a rolled or hemmed edge is just a dirt and water trap waiting to happen. Can you say rust? And a cut edge isn’t friendly to tires, I can attest to this from my younger and more foolish days.
Negative. It’s completely unnecessary, would create more likelihood of warping and isn’t worth the effort. That’s why I said this:
Fact. But I make do with what I have. This has been brought up and mentioned a couple times in the past, and it’s true. However I’ve established a system that works nearly as well, at least as far as managing the heat is concerned. The softer welds and more versatility would definitely be more advantageous though.
I’m at a point in my life where buying a TiG welder is very feasible, but now I have indecision paralysis. Do I buy a welder and then take the courses to learn how to properly use it, or do I take the courses first, then buy a welder based on what I’ve learned in the courses?
Real chicken or the egg conundrum.
With my luck, I’d fork out the big bucks for one, use it a couple times, finish the car, and then never need it again.
Lol
Ok. Now that I’m back from my trip, I got a couple good hours in The Skunkworks tonight and got the welds dressed down and hand filed.
It’s difficult to get decent pictures of it, but it turned out really well. The key to this is conservative use of the grinder to only take the tops off the welds, and then liberal use of the hand file to finish it off. 80 grit on the DA as a final step made it look like it was supposed to be that way:
Here’s what remains of the rust pitting after trimming off the majority of the lip flange:
Not terrible, but it needs to be addressed nonetheless. Enter the Rust Mort rust converter I picked up last weekend:
I like to apply this stuff with an old toothbrush, it allows me to work the product into the pits better than a regular paintbrush. This stuff needs to be handled with a certain amount of respect however, as it is essentially phosphoric acid. Disposable latex gloves and eye protection are a minimum requirement here.
You may notice that there isn’t much of a reaction here, that’s because the majority of the rust was sanded, fibre wheeled, and ground out beforehand. All that was left was literally just the deepest remaining pits. A successful reaction is when the pits turn black, signifying that the conversion is complete.
It’s difficult to see in this picture, but there are a couple really small pits in the very top right hand corner that I wanted to nip in the bud.
Once this stuff has dried, I need to neutralize it with a water rinse, and give it one more quick going over with the DA.
The next step for this flare on the bench is to smooth out some of the deeper grinder marks on the backside with some fibreglass filler and putty, then epoxy prime the backside. Once the epoxy step is done, I will seam seal the remaining round stock edge and at that point the flare will be ready to weld into the fender.
However, I’m not going to start breaking out all those related materials until the flare for the other side is done to the same point. So next I’ll repeat these same welding, grinding and filing steps on the driver’s side flare.
Looks like I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow!
D.
Thanks for the compliment, I guess I’ve set the bar pretty high for myself. I’ll try not to disappoint.
I can’t take credit for this little mod, it’s something I recall seeing in an old Street Rodder magazine many years ago. It must’ve made a pretty big impression on me, as I’ve stored it away in the back of my mind all these years.
Rollling the edges or cutting them back wouldn’t have been the right choice, a rolled or hemmed edge is just a dirt and water trap waiting to happen. Can you say rust? And a cut edge isn’t friendly to tires, I can attest to this from my younger and more foolish days.
Negative. It’s completely unnecessary, would create more likelihood of warping and isn’t worth the effort. That’s why I said this:
Fact. But I make do with what I have. This has been brought up and mentioned a couple times in the past, and it’s true. However I’ve established a system that works nearly as well, at least as far as managing the heat is concerned. The softer welds and more versatility would definitely be more advantageous though.
I’m at a point in my life where buying a TiG welder is very feasible, but now I have indecision paralysis. Do I buy a welder and then take the courses to learn how to properly use it, or do I take the courses first, then buy a welder based on what I’ve learned in the courses?
Real chicken or the egg conundrum.
With my luck, I’d fork out the big bucks for one, use it a couple times, finish the car, and then never need it again.
Lol
Ok. Now that I’m back from my trip, I got a couple good hours in The Skunkworks tonight and got the welds dressed down and hand filed.
It’s difficult to get decent pictures of it, but it turned out really well. The key to this is conservative use of the grinder to only take the tops off the welds, and then liberal use of the hand file to finish it off. 80 grit on the DA as a final step made it look like it was supposed to be that way:
Here’s what remains of the rust pitting after trimming off the majority of the lip flange:
Not terrible, but it needs to be addressed nonetheless. Enter the Rust Mort rust converter I picked up last weekend:
I like to apply this stuff with an old toothbrush, it allows me to work the product into the pits better than a regular paintbrush. This stuff needs to be handled with a certain amount of respect however, as it is essentially phosphoric acid. Disposable latex gloves and eye protection are a minimum requirement here.
You may notice that there isn’t much of a reaction here, that’s because the majority of the rust was sanded, fibre wheeled, and ground out beforehand. All that was left was literally just the deepest remaining pits. A successful reaction is when the pits turn black, signifying that the conversion is complete.
It’s difficult to see in this picture, but there are a couple really small pits in the very top right hand corner that I wanted to nip in the bud.
Once this stuff has dried, I need to neutralize it with a water rinse, and give it one more quick going over with the DA.
The next step for this flare on the bench is to smooth out some of the deeper grinder marks on the backside with some fibreglass filler and putty, then epoxy prime the backside. Once the epoxy step is done, I will seam seal the remaining round stock edge and at that point the flare will be ready to weld into the fender.
However, I’m not going to start breaking out all those related materials until the flare for the other side is done to the same point. So next I’ll repeat these same welding, grinding and filing steps on the driver’s side flare.
Looks like I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow!
D.
