Good stuff Matt, nice to see you back at it.

Thanks, Jim. It's hard to overcome the inertia of inactivity and to break down the enormous pile of work (multiple projects: 122, 123GT, Vanagon, and something new nobody really knows about yet) into bite sized chunks. I see the whole elephant but all I have is a knife and fork. I'm almost paralyzed by the amount of work ahead of me and I'm terribly tempted to junk what I've got and start over with something better.

But the past week has gone alright.

Well last night was cut a little short by the loss of use of a couple fingers. Those DA sanders can bite: when you're changing paper, make sure you flip the trigger out of the way so that when you press it against your chest you don't turn it on and bash the everliving hell out of your hands.

Before all of that drama, many spot welds:



Why I was digging around here (driver's rear corner):



(passenger rear corner):



Those areas were both hidden behind the stiffener panel that I removed. There's lots of other areas around the fuel filler hole that need repair too, so I felt it would all be easier with this panel out of the way.

The passenger front floor of the trunk had some obvious rust issues, here it is before I started hacking away at it:



And after:



I'm not sure what path I'll take for this. Most of the damage is on the outside of the frame rail (you can see the white paint left in the spot weld divots in the last image) but at the front and at the back the damage extends well inboard of the rail. It may be easiest to make this repair in a series of patches: one across the back to meet the panel beneath the trunk and to meet the buttcheek flange, one along the rest of the buttcheek flange, and one up near the inner fender. I could try to avoid having to disturb the spot welds on the outside flange of the frame rail, but I think it makes sense to remove those other rusty spots while I'm doing this. Doing it in one piece makes it more complex and harder to make minor adjustments, but would reduce the weld.

More Thursday.

Why not just take it all off up to the tank aperture and not dick around with the three panels? It's easier and less welding. Just a thought. It's only one curved flange that is bent and two that are either straight or have a little curve. The one weld around the tank seam would be neat and due to the shape of that part is unlikely to warp if butt welded.

I thought about doing it that way and haven't ruled it out, but here are my thoughts: If I make it from three panels I can pretty much free-hand them and trim things to suit as I go. If I make it from a single panel I have to get a bunch of straight and curved flanges exactly right, which means spending a bunch of time making a pattern buck.

Second-thinking this: The GT needs pretty much exactly the same panel, so a pattern buck would come in handy. Hmm...

I understand your point but I just don't accept the premise. The only time I think it is truly necessary to break panels up "British-Style" is when you have a dramatic change of shape that you can't accomplish with the tooling on hand or you run out of sheet metal on a Sunday and have to get it done. Otherwise each join is a potential rust spot/weak spot and it will look like it's been cobbled together.

You can do this.

It really is that easy.

I'm pushing because that's the point of this car.

These comments make a tree.

Or a Gaussian curve.

Neat.

Paper template - 15 minutes. Cardboard template from paper - 10 minutes. Hardboard buck - 20 minutes (it has to be right test in the car etc.). Draw on sheet metal and add flanges, cut out blank 5 - minutes. Bend the butt cheek panel flange (straight) 10 minutes. Tip the curved flanges with an adjustable wrench (30 minutes - little at a time). Stretch curved flanges to get the panel straight again (30 minutes). Then put that up curve it the flange by cutting it...add a little filler piece in the resultant pie section - (30 minutes). Scribe and cut the section by the tank (30 minutes). Test fit, mark out flanges of frame rail (if the pattern is good...drops right in) - then prime weld areas and spot weld it in place. Butt weld the tank area (30 minutes).

So that's about 3 hours of work.

Finished product looks like factory and won't have the patch panel look.

Watching with interest...

Rabin

LMAO!

Okay, so it really isn't that bad, though it took me more than a few hours to pull it off.

Of course I didn't take pictures of the process, but I took a hunk of masking paper and snuck up on the the shape of the panel I needed, getting all the contours as required. Then I transferred it to a piece of 5/8" plywood for a pattern buck, then I re-transferred the super fragile masking paper onto some really heavy card stock to make it more robust. I then made a piece from 20 gauge (because that's what the shell and inner fenders measured out to be) but I assumed wrong, and it turns out the floor is 18 gauge so I got the pleasure of re-doing the panel for more practice. While I was removing the rusty panel I discovered the bottom of the inner fender was pretty much toast so I ended up replacing that too.

Rotten stuff cut out:


Patch panel (can't remember if this is the first or second one):


Set in place, mind the gap :


New inner fender chunk:


Most of this has been treated with weld-through copper primer but has been set aside for the next repair, three rust holes in the same area of the frame horn. Yes I know one of the holes in this picture is supposed to be there, the third aftermarket hole is on the other vertical side:


This repair will be pretty simple and when it's done, the inside of the frame horn will get rust treatment and POR-15, and the panel will be fitted for good.

It doesn't look like much progress for a long weekend, but it all takes time! I need to keep rolling, I've got help coming this weekend to tackle the big ugly bit and I've got a self-imposed bodywork deadline of May 1, with a long road ahead of me.

That looks awesome! Don't forget to sand the inside of the panel and treat it to a little epoxy primer before you weld it on. The rest looks really fantastic. You're getting really good with the old sheet metal voodoo.

Thanks Craig. It's passable at best, but I'm working at it. My trouble is always fitup and welding. I can't draw a straight line for the life of me, let alone grind or weld along one.

I'm settling for just making smaller numbers of failed body parts these days. Spent 2 hours in the garage trying to get a panel to fit and it ended up "fixed". I placed it gently in the scrap bin. I will make another tonight. It may take all night. If it isn't perfect it will drive me nuts.

A surprisingly fiddly bit finished:



The inside of this horn has been scrubbed as best as practical, treated with phosphoric acid, and POR-15'd. Ready to be hidden forever.

I'll do it one piece at a time, cost me lots more than a dime...

I'm just going to park these here so Matt can continue to tell his story. This post will be deleted when he finds it.

So much work done this weekend! I'm lucky to have the help I do.

Friday morning Craig and I hit the garage pretty hard, and we didn't surface until about 5:00 Sunday afternoon. He gave me a master class on his special technique for MIG welding sheet metal with hardly any distortion. I'll add the photos to a technical thread in the fabrication section, but suffice it to say I learned a lot. Once that was done he started hacking apart the worst area on my car, a terrible section to repair properly: the inner & outer rear fender on a 122 4 door. Next time I will be sure to get the proper clamshell panel, not a crappy repair piece. Live and learn!

While he was hacking away at the passenger side, I worked on some rust repair on the driver side. I think it worked out pretty well.

Before:


After:




Craig dove headlong into the rear fender, which needed a lot of massaging:


I would have done things a little differently, cutting the outer lips off first and making that section pretty before trying to fit the inner fender. Craig showed me that getting the inner fender in place would have been very tough with the outers welded on, so he preferred to work from the inside out.

The 122 4 door rear fender is a little different from the 2 door. You can't get at the whole clamshell area in the 4 door, and the outer lip is made from 2 pieces that *sort of* seam together. Here it is with none of that:


The front lip covers the area below the C pillar and just covers the front of the clamshell. The rear lip is part of the big rear fender panel which runs up to the rear cowl and back to the trunk closing panel, and down to the buttcheek. Volvo sort of fits both of these onto the floor/fender section as it rolls down the assembly line.

The replacement section to the inner lip is terrible. Some guy beats it over a stump in his back yard, and it comes nowhere near the shape of the proper clamshell. Craig spent all day Saturday fitting this part. Miraculously, after a few tack welds and well-placed mallet blows, it popped into position and he buttwelded the whole thing together!!!






At this point we laid a tape grid on the driver side, which was almost completely damage-free and original, and we bent up some strips of steel to follow the profile of the panels. Transferring this tape line to the passenger side (when I'm done grinding) I will be able to get the shape at least close. Craig posted pictures above, I'm going to ask him to leave them there. We spent around 90 minutes taking turns on the stretcher & shrinker making those funky shapes out of straight edged sheet metal. Back and forth, back and forth...

The next step was to fit the lower fender panel, using the buttcheek (still just clamped on) as a guilde:


And then the rear section of the lip, with the seam as close to the edge of the curve as possible (to prevent warping):


Looking alright, for now!


The final welding of the panel is solid, but it didn't come easily. A couple of the panel gaps weren't as tight as either of us would have liked, and my welder is one of those little toy MIG welders you get from mailing in 5 cereal box lids so it gets a little cranky after so much welding. I have a big swell to work out but overall the welding is EXTREMELY straight: had I done it, it would have looked like 2 dry lasagna noodles laid side by side.

And that's where I sit. Next step is to grind Craig's welds, massage and weld down the front lip, massage the inner fender to meet the outer fender where the outer fender needs to be, and weld all that crap together. I have to work on the trunk floor repair panels, hang buttcheeks, and pin down the lower fenders. Then I can start massaging what few warps there are out of the rear panels and start kitty-hairing the car.

Whew! I need a brain break.