Fabrice's 429CJ 71 project

[Fabrice]

time for a little update...

Took a while because I had limited time for the 71 and what I was doing wasn't really "forum worth".
So instead of posting one boring thing at a time, here are more boring stuffs squeezed in one post, hopefully less boring that way!! :O




So as showed in my previous post, my up/middle B-pilar now in a better shape, it was time to look at the lower corner.
Or better said, look at reconstructing the corner, as it was nothing but a blob of bondo...

So as the pilar has a front and back, I first started by removing the sick part of the inner plate till I would find enough enough weld worthy meat.
And before even go further, as I was also busy removing the paint on the outside, and found again a layer of bondo (you can see some of it in previous post) .
I've found some ancient damage. Nothing big, but enough to return to the bondo solution if I would not do something about it.

That alone was worth hours of dolly/hammering/spooning in the most fun positions to restore the nice curve that our quarters have behind the door post. The surface that will likely require only just a thicker primer. All with all, pretty sure my neighbours are glad I'm done with that one!




Now that the panel was corrected, I could work on the next bit: fab the missing bits of the back structure from a bit of rusty metal and inverted measures from the other side that is still in one piece. A tedious task as the inner sheet is having lots of curves, so took them one by one and gradually assembled them together...




It's only after hours of test fitting and slow trimming that I ended up with a complex shape that I finally could use. Amazing how just a few curves can be confusing before they finally fit.




The problem with that corner is that it is double. That I knew, but what I did not thought about is that it's not at all using the same curves! So here we went again. Templates needed be made, wood fab to be able to shape the narrow angles...till at some point I could think of start welding the bits together...




Once that baby was welded, I was left with a fairly accurate shape, but just like the inner one, I had made it with excess material soooo it's been a long boring series of go fit, mark, cut, test, repeat. And once it was finally welded in place, the grinding was also a fun thing. Not! Because yeah, there are not much tools able to reach. But found out that double discs on a dremel works like a charm and won't break every 30 seconds!




And after all that gym and stoopid positions I thought I was done, but no, after a "light test" revealing small pin holes, I had to weld again and tediously grind all again but the moment I could finally mark my B pilar repairs as done finally came!! Woot woot!

Pretty happy with the result, fairly close to the original, considering that the original wasn't even there anymore!

I will continue to work on the quarter later on, as I decided go address first another wound, so my back and knees get some recovery time. Just up of the passenger torque box, some cancer needs to be treated and I can lay in the car while I work. Almost vacation. Probably not!

To be continued....

 

[Cleveland Crush]

time for a little update...

Took a while because I had limited time for the 71 and what I was doing wasn't really "forum worth".
So instead of posting one boring thing at a time, here are more boring stuffs squeezed in one post, hopefully less boring that way!! :O


View attachment 82780

So as showed in my previous post, my up/middle B-pilar now in a better shape, it was time to look at the lower corner.
Or better said, look at reconstructing the corner, as it was nothing but a blob of bondo...

So as the pilar has a front and back, I first started by removing the sick part of the inner plate till I would find enough enough weld worthy meat.
And before even go further, as I was also busy removing the paint on the outside, and found again a layer of bondo (you can see some of it in previous post) .
I've found some ancient damage. Nothing big, but enough to return to the bondo solution if I would not do something about it.

That alone was worth hours of dolly/hammering/spooning in the most fun positions to restore the nice curve that our quarters have behind the door post. The surface that will likely require only just a thicker primer. All with all, pretty sure my neighbours are glad I'm done with that one!


View attachment 82779

Now that the panel was corrected, I could work on the next bit: fab the missing bits of the back structure from a bit of rusty metal and inverted measures from the other side that is still in one piece. A tedious task as the inner sheet is having lots of curves, so took them one by one and gradually assembled them together...


View attachment 82778

It's only after hours of test fitting and slow trimming that I ended up with a complex shape that I finally could use. Amazing how just a few curves can be confusing before they finally fit.


View attachment 82777

The problem with that corner is that it is double. That I knew, but what I did not thought about is that it's not at all using the same curves! So here we went again. Templates needed be made, wood fab to be able to shape the narrow angles...till at some point I could think of start welding the bits together...


View attachment 82776

Once that baby was welded, I was left with a fairly accurate shape, but just like the inner one, I had made it with excess material soooo it's been a long boring series of go fit, mark, cut, test, repeat. And once it was finally welded in place, the grinding was also a fun thing. Not! Because yeah, there are not much tools able to reach. But found out that double discs on a dremel works like a charm and won't break even 30 seconds!


View attachment 82775

And after all that gym and stoopid positions I thought I was done, but no, after a "light test" revealing small pin holes, I had to weld again and tediously grind all again but the moment I could finally mark my B pilar repairs as done finally came!! Woot woot!

Pretty happy with the result, fairly close to the original, considering that the original wasn't even there anymore!

I will continue to work on the quarter later on, as I decided go address first another wound, so my back and knees get some recovery time. Just up of the passenger torque box, some cancer needs to be treated and I can lay in the car while I work. Almost vacation. Probably not!

To be continued....

time for a little update...

Took a while because I had limited time for the 71 and what I was doing wasn't really "forum worth".
So instead of posting one boring thing at a time, here are more boring stuffs squeezed in one post, hopefully less boring that way!! :O


View attachment 82780

So as showed in my previous post, my up/middle B-pilar now in a better shape, it was time to look at the lower corner.
Or better said, look at reconstructing the corner, as it was nothing but a blob of bondo...

So as the pilar has a front and back, I first started by removing the sick part of the inner plate till I would find enough enough weld worthy meat.
And before even go further, as I was also busy removing the paint on the outside, and found again a layer of bondo (you can see some of it in previous post) .
I've found some ancient damage. Nothing big, but enough to return to the bondo solution if I would not do something about it.

That alone was worth hours of dolly/hammering/spooning in the most fun positions to restore the nice curve that our quarters have behind the door post. The surface that will likely require only just a thicker primer. All with all, pretty sure my neighbours are glad I'm done with that one!


View attachment 82779

Now that the panel was corrected, I could work on the next bit: fab the missing bits of the back structure from a bit of rusty metal and inverted measures from the other side that is still in one piece. A tedious task as the inner sheet is having lots of curves, so took them one by one and gradually assembled them together...


View attachment 82778

It's only after hours of test fitting and slow trimming that I ended up with a complex shape that I finally could use. Amazing how just a few curves can be confusing before they finally fit.


View attachment 82777

The problem with that corner is that it is double. That I knew, but what I did not thought about is that it's not at all using the same curves! So here we went again. Templates needed be made, wood fab to be able to shape the narrow angles...till at some point I could think of start welding the bits together...


View attachment 82776

Once that baby was welded, I was left with a fairly accurate shape, but just like the inner one, I had made it with excess material soooo it's been a long boring series of go fit, mark, cut, test, repeat. And once it was finally welded in place, the grinding was also a fun thing. Not! Because yeah, there are not much tools able to reach. But found out that double discs on a dremel works like a charm and won't break even 30 seconds!


View attachment 82775

And after all that gym and stoopid positions I thought I was done, but no, after a "light test" revealing small pin holes, I had to weld again and tediously grind all again but the moment I could finally mark my B pilar repairs as done finally came!! Woot woot!

Pretty happy with the result, fairly close to the original, considering that the original wasn't even there anymore!

I will continue to work on the quarter later on, as I decided go address first another wound, so my back and knees get some recovery time. Just up of the passenger torque box, some cancer needs to be treated and I can lay in the car while I work. Almost vacation. Probably not!

To be continued....

Wow Fabrice. Way to go!

 

[Kilgon]

I said it before and I'll say it again, I envy your craftsmanship. Great work and as always good description of what you have done. Can't wait to see you start putting it back together hopefully in the near future.

 

[Vinnie]

Looks great buddy! All the time consuming test fitting and shaping and again test fitting etc pays off in the end!

Also really like the solution where you hammered that curve over a piece of wood, very clever. I will use that trick some day ;-)

 

[Fabrice]

@Kilgon It's gonna take a while before I can do that. I have a sh...t load of things to go thru before and I have less time avail than I use to have.
But the day I can start put it back together, it should go fairly fast as I have restored the majority of each and every parts already as you know.

@Vinnie At first, I thought I might loose my time as I was thinking the plywood I've used might be too soft and oak/hard wood a better plan. But no, turns out you can "smak" the metal against it with great force without any problem. The key seams to be to have an excess of metal around the shape you need, use an impact plastic hammer and only a metal (ball tip) one after the shape you want is in for the fine tuning. Hard wood would likely better to make multiple parts, build a buck... but to produce a B-pilar lower corner once in a life time, plywood works a treat!

 

[Vern Cook]

Hi Fabrice. I didn't find anything boring. Quite the opposite. Its good to see the form work behind the welding, the perserverance, application and dedication you are putting into everything you are doing.
You are an example to the rest of us. I guess I can't speak for all of us so I suppose it will have to be "some of us".
Vern

 

[Fabrice]

Another small update with very little to show

Most my limited time was spent removing tons of crap from the car, from ancient insulation sticky glue to bitumes and sand mixed with oil.... Really dirty weekends! And once some places were "clean" the real work still needs to be done and gave me the feeling nothing was getting done. Tho looking at dustbin, it was clear lots has been done!




Like removing the windshield. There too, it sounds like a little step. BUT when the glass has been removed once for paint and people used an insane amount of glue, just like on the rear window where I barrelly could remove the moldings. It costed me ages to clean up just the glass. On the pict of the outside door cleaning, you won't believe I've spent most the afternoon (in the rain) just to remove this really sticky glue, strangely still springy and really hard to remove... I btw did this outside, as my space is limited and was afraid I would break the glass.

The removal of the glass on itself went ok. My buddy and I used a cutting cable. He was outside, I was inside and we cut in tandem a few millimetres at a time the ancient glue. While removing my 73 original windshield took just few minutes when I did it, including cleaning the channel....




And once that sticky hell was out of the glass, more was waiting in the channel....
So much fun! Especially when it's near freeze point in your garage!

For weeks I did only dirty jobs like this before I finally could return to the "real" work!





As showed in my last post, the top of the torque box panel on the passenger side had suffer from water entering the cabine by I suppose, a leak at the cowl connection right above it. So cut approx 1inch extra around the sick metal, cleaned up the corrosion mechanically, then with acid and finally a layer of zinc.

I could have used thin gauge metal and just slam the metal while hot to reproduce the original shape that was stamped in, but because I use 1mm zincor metal sheet and my back doesn't allow me to take some too weird position to slam precisely at this location. I went the fab way instead: cut the shape into a piece of hard wood, and used a L cut to the width to slam my patch in. Welded it in and because it was really cold, do the grind work the next weekend.




Next was the passenger front floor. Thanks to 52 years of dirt mixed with oil, the metal is pristine under the car, not a trace of rust, but inside, the very same water that caused the corrosion on top went down and the floor was showing some pitted locations. So and the 2 picts shows only round one, I went drill all the corrosion pits, and one by one filled them back in. After a couple of rounds the floor was free of all the deep scars and after some acid cleaning, it received a layer of zinc...




Here to illustrate what's been done. That's the rear passenger floor, exactly the same story. Loads of ancient oil crap/sand mix protected the bottom very well, but from the inside, some condens or water from windows leaks entered the car and stayed there too long.
For each noticeable corrosion mark, I have drilled them out and I could feel from the pressure required to drill when I had reached thick metal again. hence the difference in diameter of the holes. Strangely on the back floor, the most corrosion was on the higher volumes and not the grooves.

Luckily the "protection" underneath is/was easy to be removed. Not much effort needed, just a tedious dirty experience. Lets just say a shower was really no luxury afterwards! :O





Also I got myself this wonderful little help a while back. One side has a flat copper head, the other, 2 very strong magnets and a little adjustable arm.
What this baby does is that not only it absorbs the heat, allowing you to use more power to weld. It also prevents the "bath" to fall on the ground and last but not least. Because you can start on the copper, the hole can be filled in no time and there is litte to no grinding necessary on the other side.

For this floor job, it's a dance as you need crawl under the car, place it, get back in the car, weld, air cool, go under again, repeat. You will feel your muscles the next day (I did) !

This floor ain't finished tho, in top right circle, you can see weak metal, and there I will need use my bead roller and make a patch for it.
For the rest, once the grinding work underneath is done, this part of the floor should be good to go for another 50 years!




While my "seats" floors were not that bad, and could save them without the need to painfully replace them. (driver side front needs similar treatment and back is still under the original paint with zero rust)
On the back platform however, it's another story. The metal is simply gone. You cannot tell from the picts aside the hole, but it's really thin there. So for that too, my bead roller should make long hours very soon as I need replace a big chunk of them.
Strangely, you can buy the 4 floors cups, not this rear platform. I see full floors have these regions stamped in, but I couldn't find any shop offering them alone. On the other hand they do not look that hard to make, so more fun ahead!

That's it for now. I still have tons of clean-ups, de-rust to do in between but I was happy to finally see some progress!

To be continued...

 

[Fabrice]

Time for another episode!
but first, I wish you all a nice 2024!

I went to France, Paris for a few days, during past week, but for xmas and new year, I was alone, so while most worked hard on adding kilos around their wastes, I've managed to do some stuffs in my cold garage...




For xmas, I decided to handle the passenger platform that was too corroded. After defining where to cut and actually extract the sick metal, I've started to make a patch, much bigger (+- 1.5 inch extra all around) as the metal there is stamped with different levels and shapes that I thought I could reproduce with my bead roller. Unfortunately none of my dies were even close to the necessary, so instead I've turned to my small metal braker and let the hammer speak!




After some folding and carefull hamering, I managed to have a shape I thought pretty close. But after a few test fits, it was clear that to match the tunnel curves, the metal needed go somewhere else...




Because of differences in crowns, as the metal needed to bend and schrink at the same time, it was flatenning the sides each time I tried curve it. So long story short, the key was to cut where the metal needed schrink in the curve, hammer it with a ball tip hammer on the under side and cut again till I got the metal where it needed be. After few test fits and redos, I ended up with a shape that was finally really close that took its place without any tension.
Woohoo!




Welded it in place. There were 3 places next to it that were corroded but not deep enough to be worth a patch, so drilled them out, welded them and after that, treated the metal with acid to remove any remaining surface rust, then cleaned up with soda and sprayed a layer of zinc so it can wait without rusting again... platform passenger; done!

Well almost done. I still need to grind the underside, but the welds being too far for reach to work safely with the car not high enough, I'll handle all that at a later date.




Back from France, I spent the last day of the year doing very dirty things... because many places like inside the pilars, the reinforcements around the roof, the quarters were having rust where it's impossible to reach. I wanted to see if I could spray phosphoric acid... I tried with Evaporust a few weeks back as it would have spared me the soda/rinse and drying session, but the liquid was simply not up to the task. It works fine only when the parts are submerged... While fireworks started to crack outside, I sprayed acid, first using a hand bottle with nozzle, but rapidly went to plan B: a small paint gun. And once more the magic liquid did it! Within 2 hours I couldn't see rust anymore, only the redish brown is the original primer. Followed that by a soda/rinse session to ph balance and a very long heat gun session to make sure all was dry. Garage was a mess. and that was only 1/4 of all. Next week as I'll do the remaining bits and extra mess :O

So yeah 2023 ended up hardcore for me


To be continued...

 

[Idaho Chris]

Fabrice- Your skills never cease to amaze me. I could only hope to be as talented.

I am embarrassed to admit I am more of a "got credit card- receive package- bolt it on" kind of guy.

 

[Fabrice]

@Idaho Chris No talent here, just the need to move in a cold garage
Note that for this specific piece, the "credit card - receive - bolt it" method would fail as this region of the floor is not sold anywhere, only full floor repros have this portion in them.

Restoring and maintaining an old US car on this side of the pond can rapidly become very expensive. So when you got two of these babies, it's clear the hands need to get dirty and learn a few tricks!
To be perfectly honest, it's never been about the money, I actually enjoy a lot the hobby! The challenges each part brings and the many disciplines that I've learned over the past 30 years. The best hobby in the world if you ask me!

 

[Fabrice]

Time for a little update

Thanks to life, cold, a broken compressor and time spent learning new ways (for me) to form metal, nothing much been done or better said not at the expected pace...




End of last year, I fixed the rear passenger floor mostly, but postponed the repair for the weak corner. So fixed that.
Now the entire floor passenger side is healthy again.




Then after turning the car to allow better access to the driver side, an easy one: the rear floor driver side. Just opened and rewelded a few spot welds.
This one was as new, but it was a super cold weekend, so this little bit in freezing condition was good enough to call it a day! dang I hate cold! ;D




Next on the todo was to fix this weirdly located corrosion on the A pilar. Carefully cutting the top layer, found out there was more underneath. Inspection from the inside showed really this only place with severe corrosion. Why there only? I dunno. So I kept cutting...




Once the sick part was completely removed, it was time to fill the gaps back, with first the under layer. Because this pilar is kinda important, all welds were done using high power to make sure
what's added back is not there just for decoration... The grinding was carefully done too, just to be picky about a part you won't see ever again, but because it needs be stromg but as flat as possible to allow the top layer to be welded on this perfecty flat.



And then came the fun: make a template as close as possible to original piece. Few hours later I could mark that repair done!




Next was that butchered opening done by this "specialist". The reason was to allow some electric wires to go via the wheel side... so one cut a L and fold it inside... :O
25 years later, another one (me) got to fix this! As its located at the crossing of 3 panels, I went for a custom piece and after some fab, spot welds, weld in and out. I seam sealed it and corrected the fresh paint.




The next baby was the front corner of the driver floor panel. No biggy me thought... it's just a corner. Oh boy was I wrong!! Not only you'd think you can bead roll 1mm thick sheet of zincor quality metal just like that was a wrong assumption, but once you start make the fold as deep as possible, you can't really do the next one. All gets warped and super strong that no hammer can straighten again! So the type of dies and the order do matters!! Then comes the fact that this cheapo bead roller needs a massive reinforcement to be able to handle that kind of metal gauge and quality. Which I of course ignored and postponed for later!!
As a result, spend hours to learn how I could do this the best way ( read how do old monkeys fail)


Back to drawing board! This time I think I know the order and how I could do this... ( not )




So for the third time, full of hopes, I started do the deep rounded shapes first, as these are adding a tremendous distord, then using the wrong dies (of course kuz the right ones are priced as gold!) but scientifically spaced to create the 30 deg angle of the original groove.
I ended up with a okish piece, but not deep enough. Basically failed again! Grrrr!!!!

Soooooo plan B it is!! I made other dies to act a what I can call a "slam it hard baby" profiler on top of the bead rolled last piece, I ended up with something close enough to the original.
As the floor was cut, it took lots of try and fits as I wasn't planning to make a fourth one!




To get the shape to match the original took loads of "slams" and also quite a significant amount of swearing But once it finally fitted, I prepped the receiving metal with weld thru primer, open more ancient spot welds on the frame ( hence the extra large beads at high temp) and welded this baby in place. And while taking a pict of the slowly drying zinc layer later, I realised it was loads of work for a corner nobody will ever see again!




In between, also finished the A pilar, reopenning the welds showing corrosion. Inspected the rocker upper part to the B pilar, and aside a few spots that will be to close extra screw holes nothing worth mention till the B pilar.
I also started prep the next baby, which is a patch for the torque box near the cable hole... that's for next weekend!


All with all, not much done in past weeks, yet hours were spent that needed be spent on these little things!! Amazing how one can underestimate how challenging some details can be!


To be continued....

 

[Sheriff41]

Beautiful work, Fabrice.

 

[Fabrice]

Another weekend fighting the rust passed...



Things like these: the driver side had no less than 4 of these dents, or on the B-pilar, where underneath a rubber one managed to somehow butcher the metal. How on earth can you even manage to make these??? Found and corrected many more in past weeks, every time clue less at what/how they were made... Crazy how all these details slow you down!




Anyway, the next patient had an obvious reason: rust! So started last week by making a template, this time, the plan was to first build the patch vs cut. Because at first sight, what looked easy wasn't that easy to reproduce due to the curves and folds involved.
Started by making a raw patch with plenty meat around in order to be able to tack and go test the angles. A few cut and re-tack gave me the two most important planes to work with...




As I had kept plenty meat on the patch, I both massaged the car side and the patch to end up with a good fit. My back did not really enjoy this job as to weld there, one needs to bend and twist in a weird way while on your knees! I do miss my 25 at times!

No less than 3 welding passes further (it's on the torque box so it got to torque!!), welded first at lower power then grinding almost flat when all was in place and welded at max power to melt that baby in place.
Serving my neighbours a long grinding symphony in the process, I ended up with a not too shabby result.
I also reopen 1 inch on top of the patch and welded that too. Why did you not patch all that too in the first place I hear you ask. Well because!!

The other side, just like the previous and future patches will be acid cleaned and protected at later date when I'll do the underside (and once I have the car at a much higher position)




Then after good inspection to bare metal and repairs of any weak old welds, unexplained dents, I went protect the top of the rocker and continued my way to the b-pilar. Where I needed cut the lower part of the quarter to discover it had been "repaired" there by simply adding a second layer of metal... The b-pilar, unlike the passenger side, requires almost nothing. Once cleaned up where i've cut, only a minimal fix will be necessary where it meets the quarter down in the corner. For the rest, it's surprisingly solid. I won't touch further there for now as I will do this when I'll handle the quarters...




Time for a little celebration!! While the above picture doesn't sound like it, this marks for me the moment I can mark the metal work done from A to b pilar on the inside on both sides till the seat platform. The "don't think and take the probs one by one" method does work! Slowly tho!

Anyway, before I'll turn the car around to handle and replace most of the rear of the car, I need first to handle this big rotten place!
Like the other side which I've handled already, it's likely the rear window had leaks and water stayed under the rear seat forever. Only on this side it also went on the outer side of the platform. So I decided to work in steps for that one as I will need to (try to) reproduce a bigger patch. The most complex part is what I've cut, the rest can be done with a bead roller without too much efforts. I also want make sure that nothing moves while I repair, so I might need to weld rods, lock the frame first to ensure that all will stay square before I cut more... we'll see.

All with all, my back is happy the weekend is over! ;D


To be continued...