55 Wagon Progress

[MP&C]

To be honest, I was installed some pin drive concrete anchors last July and smacked the be-jesus out of that thumb. It's been about three months that I haven't seen the remnants of that day...


Time to finish this part up....







All cleaned up....

[mlcraven]

What's the secret to getting the welds so finely finished, especially when you're dealing with compound curves and such?

[MP&C]

3" x 1/16 cut off wheel used to grind the bulk of it, 1.5 dia drum sander and 3" roloc sander from there. If you're gonna Mig weld, you have to learn how to grind welds...

[pintoboy77]

Nice job you should teach a class on auto body repair I know I have learned quit a bit from this. Thanks

[MP&C]

I used to write ISO work instructions at a former employer, I guess that's coming out....


Starting on the tailpan, we were torn on using the pinch weld flanges. Some of the "subtle" mods we had done included removing the pinch weld flanges and leaded seam above and below the tail lights to get rid of a dirt trap/rust generator...





The pinch weld seam for the tail pan is also in the tires path, especially given the wider rear tires and mini-tubs it's now using.



So we decided to get rid of these as well, and butt weld the panel in. With the car still sitting on the frame, the standard offset snips had some interference issue with the frame rails...



Luckily my lovely bride had picked these up for me a couple years ago...



For a much better fit in such a tight area...





The tailpan was trimmed as well, leaving a bit extra to insure we had enough metal to span the gap...



Used the tipping tool to unfold the remainder of the flange and the door skin hammer to flatten it out...





After another test fit, the reproduction showed to be not that accurate, go figure....



After marking the new bend location, the bead roller was fitted with the tipping die to relocate the bend...



Now that the tipping die has left a crease indicator on the bottom side, a hammer and anvil is used to flatten out the incorrect crease...





For a much better fit.....





With tail gate test fitted....



Well that's about all for this go round, will start welding the tail pan in next time...

[MP&C]

The tail pan and rear opening were prepped a couple days ago by painting some epoxy on the surfaces that would be adjacent to each other after welding for some rust prevention. Tonight holes were added to the tail pan for plug welding, and the panel fitted up..





Here's the epoxy, I use a letter A size (.234) drill bit for my plug welds, and to clean the epoxy from the adjacent panel, I use a letter A that has been flattened and backfaced to form a cutter similar to an end mill. It cleans the paint well, and hardly touches the metal on the adjacent panel..











Butt welding the vertical seams...









Note the views from the back side show full penetration welds. Next, grinding the welds in prep for the next set of weld dots..

[MP&C]

....and finishing the vertical welds...

[Beagle]

love how you can't tell where the welds were when you're done.

[MP&C]

Thanks! Thought I'd spend some time this evening to see how I could clean up these corners....



Trimming out some of the excess...





Used the roll former die to make the radius....







Fitted, welded, and looking much better!

[BOOOGHAR]

looks alot cleaner, but im sure the body man is going to hate doing the body work, lol

[MP&C]

Thanks! Moving on to the right side.....



Trimming the excess for the radius piece to fit in....





Trimmed to fit....



Welded in place...



Welds dressed



Yeah, I like this look much better!

[MP&C]

Not too much shop time this weekend, but I did manage to test fit the tailgate to see how well it matched the new radiuses added to the opening.





There are a couple areas the gaps will need tweaking, but the "new" corners should help add to the other subtle changes.

[MP&C]

Been a busy couple weeks working on honey do's, painted the inside of the garage so I could hang a canoe for storage, so I could paint the inside of the car trailer that it used to be stored in, so we could sell the car trailer. Late today, found a bit of time for the wagon, working on some of the plug welds for the rear valance....



The ones at the bottom attach to two braces underneath, and fitted the tailgate to pull in the valance to match the bottom of the tailgate...

[MP&C]

Worked today to finish up the weld seam on the passenger quarter panel. First, I wanted a profile template to check the crown of the panel. As the rear half of the driver's quarter was NOS, this would make a good template....









Adding an alignment mark to the quarter....







Using the profile template against the welded seam of the passenger side, we can see the low area along the center. This is a typical problem with using "half quarters", welding through the center of panel tends to flatten out this low crown area. A full quarter with the welded seam up top where there is a bit more crown tends to not have as much of a "flattening" effect.





Finishing the welds and checking with the profile template.....





Still shows some more crown needed through the middle of the panel, will do some more planishing tomorrow...

[lt1racing]

wow! your craftsmanship and attention to detail are amazing! i enjoy this thread, thanks for posting