1981 LeBaron coupe - from the ground up.
- Thread starter Dr.Jass
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restoman
The paint fumes have cleared so I'm
Nothing wrong with using a claw hammer and vise. Ya gotta use what you got, right?
Get yourself a pair of sheet metal vise grips - the ones with the wide, flat jaws - and you can make some pretty neat folded edges like pinch weld points with ease. Like Kirk said, flat stock and lumber open up a whole new world of metal working. I use a very battered chunk of 3/4" plywood to make a variety of different patches. It's dished in places for recesses, the edges are getting pretty round from hammering, and it has more drill holes in it than Northern Canada, but it serves me well.
Get yourself a pair of sheet metal vise grips - the ones with the wide, flat jaws - and you can make some pretty neat folded edges like pinch weld points with ease. Like Kirk said, flat stock and lumber open up a whole new world of metal working. I use a very battered chunk of 3/4" plywood to make a variety of different patches. It's dished in places for recesses, the edges are getting pretty round from hammering, and it has more drill holes in it than Northern Canada, but it serves me well.
69.5CUDA
Blah Blah Blah
actualy i duplicated that very pinch weld on a 69 cuda.....and i was NOT in my shop but some guys garage i did it with nothing more than a normal hammer and a bench vice.....think about where you fold the steel ..fold it in the right order and you can create some amazing things with just a vice...sometimes actualy the size of the vice will change what you can and cant make tho..thus why i sugjest the extra chunks of solid stock....also another good friend is the biggest pair of cresent wrench youve got..dont laugh..some crazy things you can do with them when it comes to body work....you gotta realise i dont have much more than a set of hammers and dollys a bench vice and a brake(the bender roller brake is up on the 40 in peices till the shop is setup)...so i have to improvise all to often to make peices..fact is ive got an old framing hammer that tends to do the bulk of the body work ...if you work yourself into a corner and need some ideas speak up...im generaly so far outside the box ill come up with something to do it out of nothing lol
Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
I got my garage furnace fixed and running well. Waiting for the car to get up to temp (shouldn't take long), and then I'm going to start on the driver's side inner. Though still undercoated I expect a lot less rust, however there's some crash damage there. A few mangled pinchwelds with which to deal--one is separated and two are just plain bent out of shape. There's a relatively-nasty rocker replacement with the end cap missing, but it's hard to tell if it's from rot or a torch at this point. Of course, there's lots of non-OE seam sealer to hide butchery wrought by an unknown body shop. Luckily, the frame rail measures straight according to the '81 Body Service Manual and I see no deformations in the inner fender, so the damage appears to be limited to the rocker/firewall/door frame area. The door opens and closes great, so I'm assuming the hinge pillar itself is OK. It's very strange damage, really, since the only panel replaced was the rocker. The door is OE as is the fender. It's almost like it was steered onto a rock or something. :huh:
I took restoman's advice and bought me a set of those fancy Vise-Grips; hopefully those will ease the pain of trying to straighten those pinchwelds. I don't even know if I'll get that far tonight since I have to knock out seam sealer, paint and undercoating. Pics later, I hope.
I took restoman's advice and bought me a set of those fancy Vise-Grips; hopefully those will ease the pain of trying to straighten those pinchwelds. I don't even know if I'll get that far tonight since I have to knock out seam sealer, paint and undercoating. Pics later, I hope.
69.5CUDA
Blah Blah Blah
which vice grips did you get?..the big C without the extra "wiggling legs" (i hate those) the big C units without the legs(my personal fav) or just some normals?
a "wide" cresent wrench also does some GREAT straitening on things including pinch welds IF you work over the area slowly
a "wide" cresent wrench also does some GREAT straitening on things including pinch welds IF you work over the area slowly
Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
I got the one with the wide panel jaws. I was making signfificant headway until my angle grinder literally burst into flames whilst I was using it. It was cheap Chinese crap, but I got six years of hard usage out of it so I guess I'm not too disappointed with it. I will say it made for some exciting moments in the garage, though... it kept on shooting flames until I unplugged it.
restoman
The paint fumes have cleared so I'm
:0
Good thing you got the gas cleaned up!
Ever smell anything worse than an electrical fire?
Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
Yeah, the stench was pretty horrific. It probably still is; I haven't been out there.
I ordered a new angle grinder today... a Makita. I was going to order an ATD, but when the tool rep asked me how much I'd be needing it he suggested I spend the extra $20. "I'd rather read a success story than an obituary."
Dinner with Mom tonight, so I probably won't get out there at all. Meh... I don't have a grinder anyhow! :doh:
I ordered a new angle grinder today... a Makita. I was going to order an ATD, but when the tool rep asked me how much I'd be needing it he suggested I spend the extra $20. "I'd rather read a success story than an obituary."
Dinner with Mom tonight, so I probably won't get out there at all. Meh... I don't have a grinder anyhow! :doh:
Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
I did get out there for a little while, attempting to use the angle die grinder and a Scotchbrite pad in place of the 4½" angle grinder. It wasn't nearly as effective, and I was waiting for the Compressor of Hate to grenade from the amount it was running. Still, forward progress.
But first, a moment of silence for my $17 angle grinder. I had to run in the house to get the camera but still managed to get this shot of it still smoking:
But first, a moment of silence for my $17 angle grinder. I had to run in the house to get the camera but still managed to get this shot of it still smoking:
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Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
I took a ton of before pics, and a few after but I won't bore you with all of them. Suffice to say, this side of the car is less rusty but far more abused and also hacked to a certain extent. These are the before pics, after I'd gotten the paint off with the Scotchbrite wheel but not touched the metal at all. I would have ground more, but I'll have a new angle grinder tomorrow so there wasn't much point in abusing the compressor any more. Check out the mangling of the pinchweld... it was so bad I couldn't get behind it to clean out debris:
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Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
Further hard damage, including serious dents and the butchery that is the replacement rocker. I'm not sure, but being that the rocker had a chrome moulding I'm fairly certain that rust hole was caused by a previous body guy blowing a hole through it with a welder or torch, and figuring "Screw it, the moulding will hide the hole!" It only got worse.
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Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
The mangled pinchweld, after a little coercion from Grandpa's hammer and and an adjustable wrench (no, not Vise Grips, a plain old 4" several-thirty-seconds). Not final, but a hell of a lot straighter.
Just for the record, it's pretty cool working with a hammer older than anyone on the board. Thanks, Dad, for keeping it and using it so little!
Just for the record, it's pretty cool working with a hammer older than anyone on the board. Thanks, Dad, for keeping it and using it so little!
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thrashingcows
Drowning deep in my sea of loathing...so I'm
Thanks for that pic of the smokin' grinder....LMAO!!!
I have an old craftsman sockets and wrench set, 3/4" drive and 1"-2 1/2" from my grandfather. They are old, probably 50-60 years, and every time I use them I think of grandpa.[smilie=:: One of my most treasured tools.
Looking good so far Doc....keep at 'er.
I have an old craftsman sockets and wrench set, 3/4" drive and 1"-2 1/2" from my grandfather. They are old, probably 50-60 years, and every time I use them I think of grandpa.[smilie=:: One of my most treasured tools.
Looking good so far Doc....keep at 'er.
Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
It's right there in the group of five pics. The outer panel itself is fine, but the end of the rocker that faces the wheel is supposed to be closed... that, and the hole blown through the outer visible in the one picture. That wasn't rust--just a hole.
That hammer is one of very few connections I have with my grandfather. He died three years before I was born. It reminds me more of my father who used it very little, as he was not particularly handy (understatement of the year). Very skilled man in other areas, but not building or fixing things.
Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
And who's fixed far worse time and again, unlike Mr. Noob.Pshaw. Easy fix.
*says the guy sitting miles away at a laptop*
The pictures really don't do a lot of justice to some of the damage, although that one's pretty straightforward. One of those dents is probably ½" deep, if not worse, yet only maybe 1½" across. Even undercoating won't hide that tragedy. The metal's stretched so badly I'm thinking it might be easier to cut the damage out and weld in a patch (here we go again!). Thoughts?