Rat repair.

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by Vic1947

Yes, if the epoxy hasn't catalyzed completely, you can spray whatever you want on top of it. If it's outside the recoat window, you'll need to scuff it before squirting anything else over it. I've noticed epoxies from different vendors can be easy or tough to sand. Haven't shot any DP for a long time and don't recall how it compares to others, but they can be sturdier than the 2K primers. You can't go wrong mixing according to the manufacturers directions. Pictures look great! Wish I'd had time to come down to Tacoma and visit while we were in Seabeck, but it was a very short stay. Keep up the good work.

Ha Ha, You know if you came by I'd take a day off work and put you to work. LOL! Thanks for babysitting my brain again! 😊

[swamp rat]

Well should have known, hang a part upside down in a cramped booth and your going to miss an area..... Sanded, prepped and masked off the area, will hit it tomorrow with the last of my Qt of primer, Also removed and replaced the air filters, I can feel the air flow much better now ..

[swamp rat]

So I guess I learned something today, I have been sanding the primer with the black sand paper and mentioned earlier how hard the primer is to sand, after about an hour and a half of fighting it today I stopped and asked myself if anything else would work better, duh, my roll of body work sandpaper cut the primer way better, donno why I grabbed that black stuff to begin with.

So have the inside of the fender ready to apply color, also working this weekend so won't get a whole bunch of stuff done.

[swamp rat]

Put down a couple coats of color tonight, of course I cant spray into hidden areas so I don't know the best way to protect it if primer isn't enough, then again I didn't get the primer in there 100% ether,, guess use a brush? Humm, maybe I should have done that before I sprayed color.. LOL!

[BlueBullet]

Maybe tape off and spray with undercoating.

[swamp rat]

Friday I took a day off and got a little work done. Mounted the passanger fender loosely to get it outta the way.

Got some of the black parts from the truck that needed blasting done and primed and painted, Battery box and a few other parts, the corner pieces that attach the radiator support to the fenders, and some of these odd ball bolts.

On the bolts i'm wanting to know if there are replacements? these have the super thick cupped washers on them. Kinda wish I had bought a black anodize kit. If I remember correctly the big washer one goes on the inner fender well(wish I had a pic handy) One I think go's from the lower fender through the lower A pillar, the other I am not sure where, any ideas appreciated please.

Passenger door, the front skin only has one place that needs a patch and only about maybe 2" square, the rest of the skin only has some surface rust, but as usual the seam area is a concern, I have sanded the entire area down although the pic's don't show it, I'm thinking I would be well advised to spot drill some welds and peel the seam back and treat with rust killer rather than cut the lower part of the skin off this time?

[swamp rat]

Well crap I didn't think of this, I have a right angle drill motor but no way to get the proper angle, I do have a .125 extension drill bit, I could center punch and drill through the skin and then use a spotweld drill and go through from the skin side then spot weld all the holes but I think as side from tha added work I the heat could play a little havoc on the skin.

I could use a cutoff wheel and hit the spots that way then patch in some material later.

Or just do the small skin patch and use the GEM rust killer both from inside and out and hope it creeps in to all the nooks and crannies .

This is where I wish I had more experience!

[swamp rat]

Grrrrrrr.. I know, get the rust out, least by looking at the inside of the door the surface rust is only up a couple inches from the bottom.

Don't want to have the skin cave in like On the drivers door, if I recall correctly it got worse the higher I cut (about 8" from the bottom on the drivers door after 3 cuts). I can keep this one down low so it should have a minimal cave in. Hopefully, if I remember right.

[Vic1947]

What I do is take a grinder with a flap disk and carefully grind the edge down perpendicular to the door skin until you see all three edges... outer skin, inner structure and folded over metal strip. Don't worry about the spot welds, you can use a thin kerf wheel on the grinder and remove enough metal around the spot to loosen the strip that's left behind.

You can go up the front and back edges as much or as little as you need. This will free a strip on the door skin that can be trimmed with the thin kerf cutting wheel or snips... if you're really into self abuse. Trim the patch panel to match and leave about a half inch extra where it meets the trimmed edge of the door skin. If you don't have an offset flanging tool, there's an air powered one available from Harbor Freight or manual ones from various sources.

There are clamps available that grip each side of an unflanged cut, but sometimes the weld draws the gap together and makes it very difficult to remove the thin blade. I prefer to flange the patches so I'm not trying to fill a gap on long sections. The extra material helps reduce warping, although low heat and patience are still needed.

Don't assume the GEM product will get in all the tight places. Last thing you want is rust popping back 6 months to a year from now.

[swamp rat]

Well the destruction has begun, naturally I find some cancer I didn't see before. Now I'm at the same crossroads I was at with the other door, I think I should go up a little higher to get past the rust along the seam's but with the last door the higher I went the more the door pulled in under stress, really hoping this won't happen again. I think what I'll do is shave the sides up each side little by little before I just trim the skin off to see how the skin responds, hopefully no stress in the door this time.

So out fell one of the vent window screw bushings, I cant remember if I ever removed the screws and lost one and replaced it or if someone at the factory might have dropped it.....

[swamp rat]

Not a lot getting done the last week, too many things going on....

I trimmed up the sides little by little and am very happy to see that this door skin is not caving in like the driver side the sides are now past where the rust stops and I had to trip an additional inch off the lower part to remove the remainder surface rust on the skin.

On the inner panel flange I'm debating on buying a lower repair panel and replacing pretty much the whole flange this time, That would mean making a run to Olympia for th inner lower. I'm looking for an easy way to work this.

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by swamp rat

... I'm looking for an easy way to work this.

If you decide to replace the inner panel, easy will go out the window. They don't fit very well, IMO. Yours is not too terribly bad and could be salvaged with GEM, epoxy and self etch primer. When I did mine, the inner panels I bought were wrinkled and fit poorly. I think you'll more than double your work if you replace them. The key to using what you have is to seal out any future moisture to prevent corrosion. As you can see, the rot already has a head start, so if moisture is allowed to creep back in, it will come back very fast.

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by Vic1947

If you decide to replace the inner panel, easy will go out the window. They don't fit very well, IMO. Yours is not too terribly bad and could be salvaged with GEM, epoxy and self etch primer. When I did mine, the inner panels I bought were wrinkled and fit poorly. I think you'll more than double your work if you replace them. The key to using what you have is to seal out any future moisture to prevent corrosion. As you can see, the rot already has a head start, so if moisture is allowed to creep back in, it will come back very fast.

Yea, I'm just looking at the flanges themselves and not the whole inner section, my main concern is the thinning of the metal and being able to spot weld the skin to it after folding the skin over, the triangle piece is bad and thin enough that like the other door I think it would be pretty difficult to weld in a small patch. I will say that of all this rust repair I think I hate the doors the most. LOL!

[rgunlock]

I'm no expert on this Mike, so no advise on how to handle the door. You'll get it licked and look back knowing most of your other repairs shouldn't seem too daunting.

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by rgunlock

I'm no expert on this Mike, so no advise on how to handle the door. You'll get it licked and look back knowing most of your other repairs shouldn't seem too daunting.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! And glad your high and dry!

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by Vic1947

If you decide to replace the inner panel, easy will go out the window. They don't fit very well, IMO. Yours is not too terribly bad and could be salvaged with GEM, epoxy and self etch primer. When I did mine, the inner panels I bought were wrinkled and fit poorly. I think you'll more than double your work if you replace them. The key to using what you have is to seal out any future moisture to prevent corrosion. As you can see, the rot already has a head start, so if moisture is allowed to creep back in, it will come back very fast.

So lack of knowledge shine's through... I made the drive to Olympia after work to buy an inner repair panel thinking that they had that triangular stiffening raised area on the forward flange formed in to the repair panel, Nope! I thought it would save me some time and effort to cut that off and use it, oh well..

On the last door I think I used a router bit and made a wooden die and hammered the shape out of flat stock then used a portion of it, was not perfect but it helped stiffen the flange, that may be a repeat in my near future but I need to do some spot blasting to really see what I have to work with..

[swamp rat]

First idea, just cut the raised part put and use a flat plate, quick and easy, may not be as ridged as stock.

Second idea: Roughed out a triangle, can weld it to the plate after I form the contour, I could drill some holes in the plate to allow it to breathe from the underside. Or pending the results of sand blasting I may get away with using only part of the triangle?

Guess I'll find out soon enough.

[swamp rat]

Blasted the flange and its a bit worse than expected, the flange is pretty thin so not sure if I'm going to be able to spot weld the holes closed, guess I can try and see.

Can anyone tell me what the "official" term is for the black deposits the rust leaves behind? that stuff is tough and didn't want to just blast away.

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by swamp rat

... Can anyone tell me what the "official" term is for the black deposits the rust leaves behind? that stuff is tough and didn't want to just blast away.

It's just iron oxide (rust) formed in a low oxygen environment.

[swamp rat]

Copper, It does a body good! I shaped a couple contours in my copper backing plate and clamped it to the flange and with pretty low heat I succeeded in filling the holes, not real pretty but its good enough. I gotta admit I wasn't sure I could get it done but glad I didn't have to cut the flange away.

[7dee2]

Way to go, nice job Mike! So isn't the iron oxide the goal or results of a rust converter and safe to seal when it's in this stage?

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by 7dee2

Way to go, nice job Mike! So isn't the iron oxide the goal or results of a rust converter and safe to seal when it's in this stage?

Heck Brett, I don't remember the tech term for it anymore, its all become a blur to me LOL!! But I will use the converter and then seal it up with some primer.

[swamp rat]

Ok so I have been quite busy but not all with the truck, my wife is outta town taking care of family business, that leaves me here with all the animals one of which had to go to the vet for 2 days, $850 later..... That and my foot has been killing me to boot.

Also with the predictions of rain on the way I took the time to recover my car covers on Saturday, kind of a pita when your by yourself.

Ok so I have been slowly working on my panel getting it fitted, knowing my luck with under cutting I have been taking my time, I have the spot weld holes drilled on the two folded flanges, flanged the door skin where possible.

This leaves me to the last flange and my current headache, what is it with these replacement panels that they pre fold them 1/4# wider than the door? Naturally flattening that 90 out to refold it takes the contour right out of the skin. I'm thinking the best way to get the skin folded would be to clamp it in place and use a few Cleco's on the overlap, then dolly and hammer the flange over. The other area for concern is the contour of the inner door didn't match the skin contour before I flattened that flange out, the lower part of that triangle seems to have a high spot.

[swamp rat]

Got the skin clecoed on the outer skin flanges and used 4 small clamps to hold the skin in place then started rolling the skin over on the last edge, once I got the lip at 90 degrees I had to break out the shrinker and rework the contour then I finished rolling it over but not tight as I still need to remove it and do some rust proofing and priming.

[swamp rat]

Had to run to the hardware store to buy more paint brushes to apply the GEM rust converter, as I was doing the application the sun came thru the window and with the door upright and upside down I spotted some more pin holes, I got a small light and found a total of about 9 if them, much smaller but there none the less. Now I hope the pin holes can be welded once the GEM has dried up... Tomorrows task.