Captain's Comet

Haven't posted up until now because what I have been working on would not photograph well.

My car had a few minor cowl leaks. When it was my daily driver(around 1995), I could not afford to have it out of commission. After treating any rust I could see with a rust convertor, I managed to seal up the leaks with a little bit of Duro "Liquid Metal" putty pressed in from underneath. Then I poured a mixture of latex caulk and water (about 80/20) in through the cowl vents and let it run to the drain, seeping through any leaking areas. Repeated applications of this ultimately sealed the leaks up. It was a long process, but it worked. The car sat out in several tropical storms and the interior stayed dry.

Fast forward 14 years, and the cowl had two more pinholes that were seeping. Now the car is further apart ... no interior or A/C, and it is much easier to get access to things. The car is too nice to chop the cowl cover out of it still, so I continued in the same vein as before with more choices to add to the mix.

First I poured Ospho in through the cowl vents. It is a watery rust convertor. In the course of wire-brushing, there was some thin metal in the top hat and a bit on the driver's side. These were filled with JB Waterweld (it can be applied and dries underwater!). Thanks to info from the board here, I discovered flowable silicone for the first time, and this was used heavily around the top hat. Unfortunately, it will only travel a couple of inches, or I would have used more of it. Follow this all up with probably six applications of the caulk mixture. This has to be done with the car jacked up at all kinds of crazy angles to make sure that you get everything covered. Ultimately, you want the last coats to go in with the drain area elevated a bit, just to make sure that there is a downhill slope that makes the water run out the drain when level again. This all took a couple of months of working on it when I could ... and the cowl is sealed again. It tested very well.

All that being said ... I am still going to make a magnetic cover for the cowl and make every effort to keep water out. With the limited use this car will see and it's leisurely garaged existance, it ought to be fine until I retire in 2025. It will probably be time to go through the whole car again by then.

 

Hinge post

Here's where the fun and pictures begin ...



It doesn't look like "progress", but there is a good reason ...


This is the end result of some body shop gorilla trying to "adjust" the hinge by slamming the driver's door on a strategically placed 2x4 ...

Note the dent in the door, and that the hinge post is completely broken away from the unibody ...

 

I didn't notice this until I tried to rebuild the door hinge and align the door for the first time in 1992. At that time, I managed to get it somewhat back into place and screw it down, thinking that eventually, I would have to learn how to weld and get it fixed right.

It took until this last weekend ...

 

Some nasty-looking welds, but that is quite literally the first two pieces of metal I have made stick together. Still learning to use my MIG. Fortunately, when I ground them, they ended up looking pretty good. Turned down the power and filled in a couple of areas that still needed attention.

Then I welded the upper area that was also a bit seperated. I was a bit less aggressive with the MIG this time ...

It is such a cool feeling to be learning to weld ... something I have always wanted to do, but the opportunity (and big need for it) just wasn't there until now. Next, I start on a few small spots in the floorpan...

 

Good work. I would have never noticed a repair if you had not told me. What i did when learning my MIG, get 2 pieces of scrap metal the same thickness as the work area. practice taching, wire speed and heat until good penetration and adheasion is ok. then transfer to the work area and everything on MIG is now set. worked for me until I got better at welding.hope this helps. RON

 

thanks for the shot of the upper hinge - mine needs to be fixed as well. looks like the old welds tend to break up there...

 

Ron,

Thanks for the tips ... feeling much better already about what I will be able to do after this repair.

Tody,
I would bet that the upper area gets stressed from the door pivoting. My car has 160K miles on it and most of it was without passengers. My passenger door is still like factory new ... nice "thunk" when you close it. Everything looks pretty new on that side.

The poor drivers door was worn out. I have newly-rebuilt 1973 hinges on it (they are different than the 1972 hinges ... the upper has stops built in, the bottom a bit different too, but bolt in place just the same). I rebuilt the original hinges 17 years ago ... figured they were done now. It also has a new reproduction striker post. The sagging door had worn a big notch in the original one... real PITA to get the factory one out, too ... it is like the metal fuses to the screws over time ... not rusty ... more like electrolysis.

Really looking forward to a really good door fit for the first time in all the years I have had it.

 

Great progress, I too am learning to weld with a mig. who ever had my 71 before me put after market moldings on, 14 holes per side

 

Ken,

I found something that might help with filling holes. Harbor Freight sells a Magnetic Grounding Block. It is a magnet with a spring-loaded brass electrode. Part number 97135 ... about $5 on sale right now.

In welding what I just did, it actually seemed kind of useless, unless you were using it with the magnet facing up. The weight of the ground wire made the electrode flop over. But in looking at it, the thought occurred to me that you could load a penny in there (copper shouldn't stick to the weld) and use it as a backing for filling a hole.

I will be seeing how this works out.

 

yup, bought it last year. That magnet works great....
as for a backer for welding I hammered a copper pipe flat and use it behinde the holes I can get too...

 

A penny is no longer made of copper - they are made of zinc. If you use a penny make it an old one for sure.

 

THANKS Paul ...

fer crissakes ... I used to collect coins and pretty much knew that ... but forgot it ...

stupid brain ... d'oh

got plenty of old pennies here ...

Thanks again

 

Update from this weekend ...

Got about 6 square inches of floor replaced on the driver's side rear floorpan. :bananaman Not as cleanly welded as that door jamb, but it is plenty strong and will get the job done.

Glad I did that first. It was a bit easier to get to, and gave me a bit more of an idea of how to attack the passenger side front footwell. At first I thought I was going to get away with replacing about 6 square inches there, based on what I had managed to probe through with a screwdriver and what looked flimsy. This was done a couple of months ago.

I went to mark it for cuts yesterday, and I was probing with a scratch awl and using more force, and it looks like I really need to cut away more floor than I initally suspected. Not happy about that ... but now that I have slept on it, it's OK and I think I have a better plan than while I was doing the first cut.

I will be replacing a patch in the floorpan a little bit bigger in that first area, and the whole strip where the toeboard and the floorpan come together in the front, from the tranmission tunnel to the kick panel, and this will replace the first couple of inches of the floorpan, too.

I probably could be leaving a bunch of it in place, but it is scaled up, and it seems that if I am patching it, it won't be that much more work to just make it all solid. Mercifully, it is all still a couple of inches away from the torque boxes.

 

....that's 2.45" x 2.45"...same size as business card...

you could have welded that hole up...

......

 

Half a roll of MIG wire ought get that done, eh?