Drivers Side Door - Sheetmetal Repair

The passenger side door repairs are complete, the primer coat has been applied and the door hangs ready for paint.  The drivers side door has been removed and is ready for sandblasting.

A 100 pound bag of sand was used to sandblast the drivers door.  A few areas were exposed that need welding, one of which is circled on the right side of the photo.

 

 Here is a close-up.

Using a pointed burr grinder the rusted area was removed then the hole was trimmed as shown.

A sheet metal patch was cut and held in place with a magnet.

The sheet metal is too thin for a continuous weld so a series of tack welds were used instead. 

Additional tack welds were added until the entire area was welded.

Using a thumb sized burr grinder the crowns of the tack welds were removed.

A sanding disc was used for final feathering of the repair.

Next I get to tackle this.

Wish me luck.

Post Script Picture:

Repairs were made followed by a coat of JB Weld to fill the nooks and crannies.

Passenger Door Rivet Replacement

While working on the interior side of the passenger door I spotted several bumps on the fiberglass located on the outside top portion of the door.  Double click on the photo for a close-up.  They were insignificant looking and could have been sanded flush within just a few minutes.  I decided to repair them instead.

A thumb size burr grinder was used to remove the fiberglass exposing an aluminum rivet.  The rivet is used to hold the fiberglass panel to the steel door frame.  It exhibited light oxidation but otherwise looked fine and the surrounding fiberglass looked fine as well.  Oxidation must have been the culprit.

It would have been easy to fill the hole and sand the other areas smooth.  I decided to grind out the other areas and remove the rivets instead.

New aluminum rivets were installed then buried in several layers of fiberglass matt and resin.  Green masking tape was used to channel the excess resin off the door.

Remember, our fiberglass is clear.  The rivet heads you see are buried deep, sandwiched in matting and are not exposed to air.  Chances of these rivets oxidizing are sip, zero, nada.

After the fiberglass set up the masking tape was removed.

30 minutes of grinding and sanding produced a very nice repair job.  We will shoot this with primer when the rest of the door is ready for it's second coat.  The drivers side door is fine.  There are no other similar repairs needed.

Passenger Door

As you can see this door has a colorful history. The blue on the face of the door is the original color of the car, Daytona Blue.

There are too many nooks and crannies on the door to clean it up with power tools. I decided to sandblast instead. It took about 45 minutes.

Both the fiberglass and the sheet metal cleaned up very nice.

One of the nice things about sandblasting is that it's aggressive enough to show weak spots caused by rust. If you double click on the photo you can see an area that needs repair. There were a few areas like this, all were minor. None the less, I ground out the damaged areas then welded them back up, and feathered them smooth.

I also found a couple areas of damaged fiberglass. Prior to the repair this hole had been torn out.

A couple broken bolts and a few damaged rivets were removed and replaced.

After the repairs were made the door was sanded then wiped down with a tack cloth.

The garage was heated to 70 degrees then primer was applied. This will dry for at least 24 hours then it will be sanded, blemishes will be corrected, then it gets another couple coats of primer.

This is a very solid door with a very nice primer coat.

The Portland Swap Meet is coming up. Hopefully we will find interesting goodies for the car.

Thanks for watching.

Passender Side B-Pillar Fiberglass Repair

A few weeks ago we repaired the drivers side B-pillar fiberglass.  Now its time to do the passenger side.

This is the panel that needs to be reinstalled.

Before the fiberglass repair was started we had to fix a damaged rivet hole located near the tip of the drip rail shoe.   A copper plate was positioned behind the sheet metal then the area was welded.  The copper plate acted as a mold because weld wire will not stick to it.

The area was ground and shaped then the rivet hole was drilled a little later. 

After aligning the pieces, fiberglass was applied to the backside, allowed to cure, then the front was ground then fiberglassed.  This sandwiches the pieces and makes for a very strong repair.

The repair was feathered and blended and the rivets were put back in place.  It's super strong and it's now ready for primer.

I think we will start working on the door jams next.  We need to install the rubber mouldings so we can confirm a good fit on the drip rails.  Because the only way to install the rubber moldings is to glue them in place, this will be the first place we paint Daytona Blue on the car.  Should be interesting.

Side Exhaust on a 1963 Corvette

I recently purchased an original 1965-67 Corvette side exhaust system on E-bay that included the exhaust pipes, covers, trim pieces, mounting brackets and all the hardware.  This set is exceptionally nice and I'd rate it an 8 out of 10.  These are perfect for our driver.

As you recall I had also purchased a new set of stainless steel reproduction exhaust pipes several months back.  Since I now have an original set of pipes I decided to do a side by side comparison.  The original pipes are in the background.  It's easy to see that the reproductions have a significantly larger exhaust tip than the originals and that tells me the repo's will sound different.  Since the originals are in such nice shape I decided to swap them out and go all original.

I was bummed when I realized a portion of the front wheel wells and all of the side brackets had to be removed in order to get the exhaust system to fit.  After a couple days of deliberating I finally decided to go ahead and do it.

I cut the fiberglass using my Fein Multi-Master tool as seen in the previous picture.  It's a great tool and it worked perfect.

The brackets are heavy gage steel and they are very close to the frame.  I decided to cut these brackets with one of the most diabolical tools I own.  The twin bladed, counter rotating, tungsten tipped Twin-Blade from Sears.  You can see it in the picture below.  This is a scary tool and it demands a ton of respect.  It will cut through anything... and I mean anything.  You turn it on and push it toward whatever you want cut.  No backlash, no jamming, no slowing down.  It took 1 minute to cut these brackets.  I could have cut the frame in half in the same amount of time if I wanted to.  It's a cool tool but very scary.

Done.

The exhaust covers and trim were installed first followed by the exhaust pipes.

The front brackets were sand blasted, painted and riveted in place.

The bolt that holds the exhaust pipe is suppose to go through a hole that I was suppose to drill in the frame.  I decided to weld the bolt to the frame instead.  It worked great and is very strong.  By the way, that's only surface rust in the exhaust pipe.  The pipes are like new.

They sound great and look awesome.  

Yes, I did both sides.

This completes our Era Modified changes.  Modifications include the Torq-Thrust D wheels, side exhaust, and the 67 big block stinger hood.  Not shown is the rear torsion bar.  I like it!

B Pillar Fiberglass Restoration

Last year when we repaired the B pillars we had to remove the fiberglass that covered the pillars.  It's time to reinstall those covers.

The drivers side cover was tabbed in place (two black tabs), riveted at the drip rail shoe, then fiberglass was applied after feathering all the joints.

I didn't like the gap between the top of the panel and the drip rail shoe so I decided to add a little more length to the panel.  Our preference is to sandwich all fiberglass repairs.  Because the panel is already fiberglassed into place I had to wedge open the gap at the top of the panel and place fiberglass matting on the backside.  Duct tape was strategically placed to capture all the excess fiberglass resin run-off.   

The back side was fully wetted with resin then fiberglass matting was put on the front side to complete the sandwich repair.  The duct tape worked great.  You can see the excess resin collecting on the paper towel at the bottom of the photo.

Here is a close up of the repair.  Remember that our fiberglass is clear so even though you see rivet holes the holes are long gone.

A tongue depressor and duct tape were used to make the resin conform to the drip rail shoe.

After 24 hours the duct tape was removed.  This picture was taken just before the fiberglass was trimmed to fit.

Double click on the picture to see how much length was actually added to the panel.  It's about an 1/8" overall but it matched the shoe very nicely.  This overall repair is extremely solid.  Just prior to painting this area the pop-rivets shown will be replaced with flush mount countersunk rivets and bonding agent will be applied along the panel and the car skin.  The same will be required for the passenger side.  

The next post should be about the side exhaust.

Thanks for watching.