Not in Lethbridge as I just found out...

That picture of the rear quarter - is that bare metal, or something-else? It looks pretty sharp!

Just lightly straightened with some icing on it and a light dusting of primer.

Sweet, picked up a 169 code V8 T5 for $250 today!

this leaves me needing a clutch, and to get my flywheel surfaced/balanced and the whole shebang can drop in and be ready to drive... at least mechanically.

Still need to run fuel lines, and wire it up.

look what FINALLY came in..... after ordering it september 3rd! That and the bender too! darn, now i could do some work on the PV....

dug it out of the snow today, the garage is nearly cleaned out, i'm hoping to get the car inside and finish up the rear axle, and then install the U joint, and then put in my new t5 and build the xmember. I'm considering seeing what it would be like with the engine tilted back over too.... too many decisions!

next step is soldering up the in-tank fuel pump and plumbing that, and wiring up LH 2.4.

waiting for the shops to re-open to get my flywheel to get surfaced/balanced with the PP i got from Jordan.

whilst i'm waiting on a few things (Namely the weather to warm up) i figured i'd tackle the D pillar rust/roll pan issues.

The roll pan itself is in pretty darn good shape, but this nasty little section behind it i need some feedback on how to tackle it...

So there are 5 pieces of sheet metal here in the vertical direction, the outer fender, inner fender, each side of the D pillar and then a skin outside that. Plus the support. The 3 outer/inner/part of the D pillar converge at the bottom here and there is rust about an inch up on all 3 of them around where the tail light wiring went.

My plan is to drill out the spotwelds on the outside, and use a body-saw to cut down and across on the outer fender which will expose all the pieces i need to repair.

is there any problem with this? It will take some grinding to get back into shape around where i re-weld it, but the curvature of the piece should make it so i can avoid warpage easier than cutting it elsewhere when re-assembling. The other section marked off is quite simple, and is just being careful with an angle grinder and knocking it back to expose the support beam, then coating the inside of the member and patching it up.

Input?

impatience got the best of me, the good news:

once i get this all cleaned up, it won't be extremely difficult to repair!

the bad news: It's gonna be an absolute pain in the arse to rustproof the inside of this back support member. any ideas?

It's hard to help with this one Eric...I'd have to see it and the sedan in that location is different. Rust proof is really not that hard. For the box section, I'd drill at good sized hole and then find a plug. Check out the floor sections on a 240 for what I'm thinking about. About a 1.25" hole would be fine. Then once you've got the inner sealed with paint, then body cavity wax, put in the plug and goop it up with urethane sealer. Undercoat everything and you're done.

i'm thinking i'll splurge on the proper 3m interior panel sealant, and drill some big holes for drainage, one at each end, and one at the middle of the support bar. then one in the lowest point of each rear fender well. Now, what i'm not sure of, is i cut out a piece of decent gauge steel, i have a feeling it was a drain, but can't follow it up with a piece of mig wire to confirm. any idea what is just to the right of the offset trapezoidal piece in the left centre of the pictures?

I thot you had two wagons?

I can't tell from the pics what you are talking-about, but with a good pic, I could go out and look on mine.

As for the rust, you can get a product called rust-check which you can spray-bomb on to rusty metal, and it will turn black, converting the iron oxide to something-else (seems to me, something like iron permangenate), which is paintable. The shop needs to be warm, and you need two coats. If you are spraying where you can't see, well, do yur best, I guess. I used an etching primer (2-part) on the whole undercarriage, but that was after I sandblasted it. Then I put on truck-bed liner (also 2-part). I guess time will tell about that idea, but it is very flexible, so I'm PRAYING it won't crack.

Jim

P.S. - I'm hopin' you have got the gas-tank out!!!

Haha, I looked/prodded on the other one, I really can't tell where it goes.

The gas tank was drained and is now filled with ice to ficure out the ride height/ballast with fuel.

I'll be playing with this more this week. Since it's an internal panel, and it's cold out, I won't be able to bed-line it, so I'm planning on using rust converter and 3m panel sealant, which is a rubbery kind of rust-proofing that is supposed to work well. I'd like to know if there is a drain there. If not, there probably will be by the time I'm done. I'm looking at making these panels drain well to avoid what happened already.

found out the drain is more like a vent.... just goes into the upper panel... hooray?

as well, there's nothing to drain the bottom of the panel, hence all the rust...



spent a few hours with a grinder/bodysaw/chisel/drill and separated some of the fun rusty bits.

I'm gonna be adding metal back in starting tomorrow.

turns out i can rustproof the inside from the hinges fro the tailgate, they fit into this panel, and presumably, that's where the water enters from too. so, it'll all get treated with 3M 08892.

I'm also going to run the taillight harness through here to avoid issues with the roll pan collecting water against it and helping to keep it out of the elements.

As well, i'll be adding a few drain holes to it. I'm dreading doing the other side, which seems rustier yet.

frig it gets cold on the old arse sitting around cutting, chiseling and now welding!

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