Finally working on the Burb Again!

[ronh72c10]

After more than 8 months I'm finally working on the suburban again. I had this whole week off so I got a fair bit done.

I cut out the old driver side pans and cab support, spot welded in the new cab support. Put in the new pan (I haven't finished welding it yet, it's just tacked in), and welded in a new front dog leg and kick.

I still have to finish with the inner rocker and outer, and finish weld the pan, but I'm pretty happy with the progress, should be done this weekend.

I'm also happy with how well the spotwelder works since I bought it non-functional and had to rewind the primary.

And the bonus for the week was that the set of 8 lug slots I bought on ebay came this week.

Ebfabman deserves special thanks for producing the DVDs that gave me the confidence to do this extensive a repair!

Ron

[rage'nrat638]

GOODNESS!!!!!!!
you do have BIG waybo's UU great job there
looks like you got the TIM ALLEN cord end on the old spot welder there..

looks like you will be a expert when done keep the pictures coming
your pal mark

[ronh72c10]

Originally Posted by rage'nrat638

GOODNESS!!!!!!!
you do have BIG waybo's UU great job there
looks like you got the TIM ALLEN cord end on the old spot welder there..

Fortunately, since the picture was taken I changed out the bodged stove cord and put a welder plug and cable on it instead. Don't want no fires here!

Ron

[ronh72c10]

A little more progress, fully welded the pan in, repaired the inner rocker and ground most of the welds down.

A little more inner rocker work and the outer rocker and door can go back on.

Then the work starts on the third door rocker and spare tire well.

Ron

[RANDY COX]

Very nice work I like the spot welder too.I worked on mine too in the process of lower left rear quarter need final trimming and put a stereo system in since mine didn't have a factory one to start with,now I'm putting diamond plate in rear along the sides where side panels would be.I'll have to take pixs.

[ronh72c10]

Originally Posted by RANDY COX

Very nice work I like the spot welder too.I worked on mine too in the process of lower left rear quarter need final trimming and put a stereo system in since mine didn't have a factory one to start with,now I'm putting diamond plate in rear along the sides where side panels would be.I'll have to take pixs.

Post some pics, I'd like to see them.

As far as more progress goes, the driver door frame repairs are complete and the door is back on. I'll need to align the door and mechanism since they need a little work. I can see that the rocker will need some building up to match the body lines and meet the bottom of the door.

I cut open the third door rocker to see if I could get away with just patching the top, but I could see pinholes everywhere so I'll have to order a replacement before I can do any more.

The spare tire well needs a little welding to fix some pinholes on it, but the major part of the work is welding in the patch on the right, it goes in the inside of the right rear fender well.

Ron

[72CSTC5]

Shes looking good, keep the motivation going and dont stop until you are done.

[Canadian694x4]

Ron, Looking Good Buddy! Nice Work! Keep the progress pics comin'!

[Palf70Step]

You are making good progress. It is coming together very nicely.

[Livrat]

ronh72c10.. great work. keep the pics coming.. How do you like the hand held spot welder? I have been eyeing those but before I get one I wanted to have some input from someone who has actually used one.. It would save me alot of time over plug welding.

[ronh72c10]

Originally Posted by Livrat

ronh72c10.. great work. keep the pics coming.. How do you like the hand held spot welder? I have been eyeing those but before I get one I wanted to have some input from someone who has actually used one.. It would save me alot of time over plug welding.

When I first repaired the spot welder I did some tests with some scrap metal. With 22 gauge metal it actually tore the metal when I tried to break it apart with a chisel, with 14 gauge the spot weld cut through but was very solid. I'm completely confident in the strength of the spot welds.

As far as usability goes, you'll still have to do some plug welding but anywhere you can reach with the electrodes will work very well. When I did the pinch weld at the bottom of the rocker panel it went very quickly, taking into account that I didn't want to burn out the spot welder again so I let it cool between every ten spots.

Ron

[ronh72c10]

Did a little more work on the Burb. Drilled out the pop rivets holding on the trim. Took a hard look at the Burb and noticed a poorly repaired crease on the right rear corner. I also noticed some pinholing around the taillights, I'll have to strip the paint to see just how much bondo there is there. Removed the old upper hatch since it's pretty much finished. Had another look at the spare tire well and am probably going to try and repair the crease on the outside first.

Now I'm left with the decision if I'm going to shave the trim or buy new stuff.

Ron

[ronh72c10]

Little frustrated today, stripped the paint on the Right rear corner, lots of bondo. The corner is fairly deeply depressed, the center of the body line is at least 1/4" deep and pulling it with the stud welder and slide hammer didn't change it much. I have to put a long straight edge on it to see how it relates to the body lines ahead of the rear wheel, but it looks like the whole corner is knocked in 1/2". I'm not sure how I can pull the whole corner back out that much.

The good news is that the crease ahead of the rear wheel pulled out quite nicely.

Ron

[Jimbotronics]

That's some great looking work you got going there man, don't let the set backs deter ya! It'll be worth it in the end! Keep the pics coming. Rock on!

[ronh72c10]

Well I figured out why the right rear corner is such a problem. It looks like the corner had a patch welded in before the dent was pulled, the patch was pulling the upper panel down, when I made a cut along the weld line the upper portion popped out almost a 1/4".

I had a close look at the repair and could see 1/4" of bondo over what was obviously a fleetside bed patch panel. I don't know if the profiles are same as for a suburban but it didn't look close. I'm going to buy a burb patch for the corner and fix it right. I'll have to check to see if the left side needs some repair also, I could see it also appears to have been repaired with a fleetside patch panel. Judging by the pinholing around the taillights I'll probably need to buy patches for those also.

Ron

[jfalesi]

Wow, that's some impressive work. Pardon my ignorance, but what the heck are those rods sticking out of the fender?

[ronh72c10]

The rods are spotwelded onto the fender so you can use a slide hammer to pull dents. They've worked very well for smaller dents, with this dent I need to figure out how to use it better.

Ron