55 Wagon Progress

[MP&C]

This is a mod I had discussed with the owner quite a while back, and she asked about it again a couple weeks ago, so I guess we're on the hook to shave some seams..





The bolting plates are cut out of the way, and the folded flange is trimmed, leaving a bit of extra to allow for fine tuning the weld joint.











Bottom of the fender is cut loose from the bolting plate using the cutoff wheel. Then sanding the face of the fender leaves a contrast at the bend of the flange for a good guide for trimming with snips....











Planishing out the fold to fill the gap....








Using clamps to test fit. Still needs some fine tuning for zero gaps, but we'll finish that another day..

[MP&C]

Got to trimming the fenders, little to no gaps....





Used the new ER70S-7 wire. Looks to me like it lays out a bit flatter...








Used the crowned hammer to planish the welds. This stuff appears to planish out a bit easier as well.





After planishing, 1/16" wide cutoff wheel used perpendicular to the weld for grinding the welds with minimal contact patch and less heat buildup. Ground welds just proud of the metal surface, front and back, to make room for planishing the next set of weld dots. Then rather than weld the next dots in the middle, I overlapped each of the previous welds to help eliminate missed spots and pinholes. Weld, planish, grind, repeat.











Then I got on a roll and missed some in process pics, but here is the result after dressing out all the welds...





Back side....








Yeah, I like this much better....

[MP&C]

One more piece to finish up the shave, the inner flange for the grille opening needed connecting together after trimming the bolting flanges.





Trimmed and holes drilled for plug welds....











All welded and dressed out....

[MP&C]

I was going to start the shave on the driver's side this afternoon, but a few stumbling blocks along the way...

Mocked up all the front sheet metal just to see it together again.. Gotta love that hood bird..





Here's the factory seam to compare to the shaved version...








Bumper filler panel had been tweaked at some point in the past 50 years, so let's see what we can do to straighten it out some....








Used a combination of the flat and crowned body hammers, the donut dolly, the 5" dia shot bag, and a round hunk of steel.





Much better...





Next on the list before the next shave, a bit more rust to attend to...





Used a wide sweeping radius on the cut to minimize any extra shrinking that occurs inside tight corners.





To get a good, consistent profile on the patch, I used the go kart wheel...














Laying out the pattern..











One last test fit before tipping the flange...





Dumb mistake number one....don't cut the patch so small you can't get leverage to force the flange to tip...





Well, we do have a good crease to work from now. Some hammering on the 2" round anvil will work





Trimmed to fit...





Welded and dressed...





Hey...the light even fits

[JointTech]

impressive metal work. That stuff amazes me.

[CAL 58 GMC]

Nice work!

[special-K]

I'd say you have that whole metal workin' thing down. Nice work!

[Bishops Trucks]

Very nice work. My favorite of the tri-5's.

[71swb4x4]

Goodness, you certainly know your metal work!! Great job!!

[MP&C]

Thanks for the comments! It comes with many years of practice and quite a few not as nice results....

[BlueJeep]

Fantastic work MP&C, I've been following your What's in my shop thread on metalmeet for quite some time and always love when you post up new things. Can you give more details on the donut dolly? What does it do, how does it work, etc?

Thanks!

[MP&C]

Thanks for following the thread! The day job kept me travelling much of last year, so the posts were few and far between. I'm trying to catch up a bit now..


I've got a couple threads I did on the donut dolly, one on 18 ga cold rolled steel using my fake donut dolly, and another on a flat of sorts aluminum door, that seemed to respond much better. I think the factory 19 ga steel would respond much better than the 18. But anyhow, here we go...

Donut on steel:

One of the guys over on the metal shaping web sites has a neat tool he sells called a donut dolly. It works more proficiently in off-dolly shrinking a crowned panel because it supports the bottom side in more than one spot (around the perimeter) as the panel is bumped from the top in the center of the donut dolly. This would seem to be useful in body repair, especially to address high spots found after blocking primer where heat would not be as feasible.

A few days ago, someone on another forum asked for advice in removing an outward roof dent. I suggested a low-buck alternative to the donut dolly, simply using a PVC pipe fitting. Where it may not work as aggressively as the donut dolly which has more mass, sometimes slower is better, especially when trying something new. I just today got around to trying this process in the shop, and rather than use the roof of something sitting here, we will use a piece of 18 ga CRS to simulate a roof.

Grid layout for the Wheeling Machine, and completed "sample" roof...








The first order of business should be to make some profile templates. In the case of an actual dented roof, use the opposite, undamaged side. This will allow you to check your progress as you go, and easily find the remaining high spots.








Using a crowned body hammer, a "dent" will be added from the back side, crossing both of our template areas.





With the dent added:











I chose to use a PVC elbow, it had two different sized ends for two tools in one. As with any body tool, they should be free of any burrs that may mar the metal surface. I also added a slight radius to the edges...








Holding the dolly against the bottom of the panel, you can see that due to the dents it only touches the panel at the red arrows. Based on off-dolly principle, the shrink would occur more prominently in the direction of the red arrows.





Here are the tools we will use today:





After some off-dolly bumping:





Check with the templates








Progress....these are light taps only with the hammer. We just want to bring down the high spots, not create craters.










Here's where I finished up...










I have a little over an hour in making the panel, denting, and removing the dent. Where I still could have gone a bit more, it was about to a point where high build primer should have masked any remaining imperfections. This dent removal could also have been accomplished with heat shrinking using an O/A torch, etc, but for those times where you may not wish to use heat and want another option, this seems to work well. I think with using the donut dolly and it's heftier mass, one could shave some additional time off the repair

[MP&C]

Donut on Aluminum:

I had a left over door from a bus repair earlier this year, and as it was damaged the least, we thought to keep it as a starting point. New ones in primer go for just under 1K, so I think we can save some money here....

The last time I used the "donut dolly" was with the low crown body hammer (the flat one) but when I tried it on this flat panel, progress seemed to be rather slow. I think the low crown hammer was better matched to a crowned panel, and with this panel being flat, I may have better luck with a crowned face body hammer. So as we're starting with bent metal anyhow, what's a little trial and error going to hurt? I'll just keep my fingers crossed that the hammering force would not be great enough to pound dents in the other direction. (we're looking for consistency and moderation )





Here's our dented sample today, an aluminum door skin with a nice crease that travels just about the full length of the door.













As the donut dolly is very closely matched in size to the hammer diameter, accuracy in locating the devices opposite each other is crucial. Depending on the panel you are repairing, this may be a challenge in itself. To keep the tools properly aligned and thus provide a more efficient shrink, I suggest a grid on either side, matched to identical starting points.








I numbered every fifth one just to keep better track of where I was. Some days you need all the help you can get. Also shown is the damage before starting, located at grid 5, 10, and 15, just for reference of our progress.











As I am working with a flat panel, I am able to use a straight edge to monitor the progress and see where additional shrinking may be needed. If you are using this process on a crowned panel, I would suggest making a profile template matched to the undamaged side of the car. Also, seldom does the crown on a panel remain consistent from one end of the panel to another, so it is very possible you may need different profile templates to accurately guage different sections along the panel.

After about 30 minutes of work, here are the results, again located at grid 5, 10, and 15.











And the light reflection shows considerable improvement over the first pictures....








This is now at a point we could strip the paint off the door, and any remaining defects would be taken care of with high build primer.

It was difficult to hold a hammer, donut dolly, and camera all at once, so what you don't see is that the hammer is used on the inside of the door, or "high" side of the dent, and the dolly was used on the outside, or "low" side of the dent. So that shows the theory of the donut dolly, basically using off-dolly principle but by spanning a dent/ding, the off dolly benefit is realized on both sides of the dent for more effective bumping.

[jtj143]

Nice, detailed explanations! I admire your thoroughness and attention to detail. Ms. '55 Panel Owner will be pleased!

[ljackson]

Nice work. Thanks for taking the time to show us novices how to do it right.

[MP&C]

Thanks for the comments. Well after the 390 valve cover diversion, time to get back to work on the 55's driver fender. The two pieces have been trimmed for a tight butt joint, shown here clamped together...



It was then I noticed the crease just above the seam..



Ahhh, the dreaded fender bump. I believe this is caused by someone bumping into something with the corner of the bumper, which in turn forces the lower portion of the fender backward, thus forming the inward crease (red line) and outward crease (yellow line). Always better to fix the body damage before attempting to weld panels together.



Another view of the outward crease....



A 3" roloc disc scuffed across the lower crease on the inside of the panel quickly shows the area that needs to be bumped outward...



The tools used will be the donut dolly, a small shot bag, and body hammer.



The area was worked using the hammer and dolly, with progress checked by scuffing with the roloc disc.



Needs just a bit more cleanup, but shows a much more repectable crown, as shown by the #32 sweep

[MP&C]

Back to welding... All clamped up, again...





First set of tacks...








Weld penetration, the back side....








I had someone asking about the process I used with the mig, so I took the close ups to show it a little better... Weld, planish, grind, overlap, repeat...








Planishing as you go helps to keep the panel's shape in check...





Still needs a bit of bumping but not too bad overall..

[MP&C]

Tonight's accomplishment, back to the driver fender. I still had the inner seam to finish up...








Bridging the gap where the flanges were cut out...

















Installed....








A look from the front...

[inovermyhead]

very nice. I really like all the detail you provide.

[dug224]

Great tutorial. Subscribed...keep the lessons coming. Thx Dug

[MP&C]

Started back in the wagon tonight, the rear hatch was a bit snug for the opening the factory provided.








Rather than risk certain chipped paint, we'll work to get the gaps more consistent...








Then the edge was ground to our mark and some c-clamp vise grips held all three pieces snug while they were tacked in place.











Then the top and bottom sides of the weld are ground flush with the panels. This removes the bulk of the weld and makes it easier in trimming the side....








Marked again....





....and ground to yield a much better gap. One down......

[MP&C]

Continuing on to the driver's side, this one is a bit tighter at the bottom than the other, shows about 1/32 gap. Used the compass again to mark the cut line...








Tacked, welded, and welds dressed...








All finished for this evening, have a couple pin holes to fix, will get them when we do the top...








New gap is right at 5/32", or to be more technical, one paint stick width....

[MP&C]

Ok, one side left to go...











Trimming to fit..........





Welding the layers together....











After dressing the welds..... I do have a couple pin holes to fix, but the gap is looking much better.

[MP&C]

Spent tonight working on the tailgate jamb area, touching up some factory welds in preparation of installing the rear tail pan. Wasn't too long before Murphy's law reared its ugly head, and the lower part of the jamb showed some signs of rust lurking inside.





Cut open an access hole and cleaned out the inside as best I could for welding in some new metal..








For making a replacement, I have an "anvil" I made recently out of some scraps from under the welding table...











Here's the anvil end we'll use this evening as matched up to the original...











Fitting, trimming, and welding...




















....and, as can be expected, one more to go... Until next time.

[plainred65]

Very nice work, love to watch a real pro do this type of repair.