Removing the Ghia's Right Rear Quarter Panel

I've spent the last few weeks doing more head scratching and starring than welding and grinding. I need to get the rear end of the ghia back together, but I need it to be correct. I realized last weekend that I needed a second brain involved and I called my wife's Grandpa Cecil to see if he could bail me out again!!! Tuesday night he came over and we started making forward progress again.

For Cecil it all comes easy. Most of the problems that stop me dead in my tracks are just simple things that he's encountered before; either in fabrication or repair. My problem was the gap for the rear decklid. It was pie shaped because the rear quarter was improperly installed by the PO's "bodyman."

It seems simple enough, pull in the top of the opening and push out on the bottom. Unfortunately, every time we did that, the skin flexed up by the door. We welded on a couple scraps of rebar to give us something to clamp to and draw the gap together. Again, too much flex in the forward section of the panel forces the bottom of the opening even further in.

After about 2 hours of fighting, we decided it was time to remove the whole quarter from the B-pillar and find out if there was something else wrong... Yep. MORE CRAPPY REPAIRS!!! The skin was welded onto the B-pillar with about 1/4"-1/2" gap between the mating surfaces. There was bondo and caulking stuffed into the void. There was also a 1"+ buldge in the wheel well that was pushing the front end of the panel out, creating the uneven gap at the back of the car.

I have knocked the wheel well fairly straight again, welded up a bad section in the well, and I still need to work the B-pillar over a bit to remove the gap between it and the door skin. While I had the panel off, I decided to knock off the major rust and hit it with some POR-15. I forgot how much that stuff can stink up the house!

Rebars welded on so the clamps have a place to "grab on"

Rear Quarter removed (Am I in over my head?)

Everything coated in POR-15

Right Rear Quarter finish up

Got the last section of the right rear quarter welded up and finished out. Now everything on that corner of the car appears to be solid. I don't have photos, just a video posted up on youtube. I'll hopefully remember to start taking photos again.



I got inspired by this guy: http://www.youtube.com/user/SgtViktor and decided I needed to step up and fabricate the tool I need to fix the nose bead on the front of the car. I went to the local metal supplier and dug through his scrap bin. I found a couple round bars that looked about the right size and a couple pieces of solid bar stock to make tools from. The tool works great on scrap sheet metal pieces. I suspect it will work great on the car as well.

Passenger Side Rear Quarter Continues

Here are a few vids from the quarter panel repairs. Hope you enjoy them and learn something.

Passenger Side Rear Quarter Patches

While trying to straighten out the issues with the hood gap around the rear decklid, I discovered some chipping paint on the lower section of the right side quarter panel on the driver's side. After grinding off the paint, I found a 2" hole that had been filled with bondo and painted over. There was NO metal behind it at all. I cut off the rotted section and found more rot on the wheel well inside where the quarter welds on. I wound up having to cut out even more of the panel to get to the wheel well underneath.

I made the repair to the well, then started making the patch for the bottom of the quarter. There is a compound curve just below the indent for the bumper. I spent about 15 minutes with my HF planishing hammer and my redneck shrinker making the curve. After it was formed and fit up, I started welding everything back together. I still have a section I need to fab up and weld in either tonight or later in the week.

quarter with bad metal removed and the wheel well patched up.
patch with compound curve getting fit up and ready to weld

patch welded in

This is the extra piece I cut out to get access to the wheel well. It's getting welded right back into place.

Everything ground down. I still have some patching to complete. I might break out the POR15 before I go much further.

Rear Apron

After removing the 1/4" of bondo from the rear apron, I went about straightening out all the dents the the PO's body guy decided to leave in the metal. It truly looked like it had been hit by a hail storm of different sized hammers. The funny thing is that it was welded to the quarter panels on both ends, so that means it may have been off the car at one point or another.

I spent about 15 minutes using my new slapper and my dolly in the bench vice. That combination took care of a huge amount of work in a very short time. Since the slapper is so wide it's able to create a much larger area of refernce when compared with my favorite body hammer. I think the slapper will quickly become my weapon of choice when first attacking dents and dings.

After the slapper, I turned to a combination of the planishing hammer and my hand hammers. I hit the dents from both sides and got everything close to where I wanted it. After things were decent, I spent about 5-10 minutes on the english wheel with a fairly flat lower anvil getting some of the finer dents and dings worked out. After the e-wheel I hit the whole piece with my DA and highlighted all the low spots. Another 10 minutes tapping with my hammers and the piece is just about ready to be reinstalled. I have a bit of welding to do where the metal tore, but the pieces is 95% complete and looks really good.

The next step to getting the rear end straight will be reinstalling the decklid and cutting the right quarter loose so I can get the gap adjusted. I have been running into a lot of situations where I have no references from which to measure. This is true for the rear of the car. I don't know if it's out of square and since the whole thing from the wheels back has been hacked up, I decided to find the center of the car and start from there. I set a string line on the nose ridge, then hit the center of the cowl where the windshield squirter sits, then the center of the engine bay between the rear hinges. From there I eyeballed the center of the engine bay. That should get me within about 1/16" of center. Hopefully I can run a few other strings and find a line perpendicular and use that combo to measure distances for bits on both the left and right sides of the car.

Apron cleaned up

String lines for finding the car's center

Vid of the apron work

Engine Bay Fit Up

I spent a good part of the day today messing around with the engine bay sheet metal. I got the pieces from a donor car somewhere out west a few months back. They are from a 60's era car, so there are some slight differences between these pieces and the pieces from a 74. I tried to make the whole thing fit at once, but there is no way to make that happen. The left side had some cancer, so I seperated that piece of tin from the others. While doing that, I wanted to flatten out a recess in the panel and decided to just make a replacement and move on. Everything is fitting up nicely. I need to make and fit up the replacement skin sections and fix the bumper mounts before I put the tins in permanently. I'll probably sand blast them as well.

Right side of the tins fit up

Left side fit up with old metal

Left side with new metal

Cleaning up Engine Bay

I worked all weekend, but I don't have many good pics to post since most of the work was grinding paint and rust off the car. I cleaned up the engine tins I bought a few months back. I also cut out the bumper support (inner rear fender) on the driver's side. Oddly enough, the lower rear quarter panel was not rotted out. The cruddy replacement panel actually allowed water to get out and not stay trapped! I have a vid showing the process of removing the apron and what great work the PO's body guy did.

I also separated one set of my driver's side seat tracks from the section of pan I cut out a few years ago.

left rear corner of the car... Can you count how many pieces were hacked together to form this corner??? I count 6. I'll be fabbing up a new one in the next couple weeks.
Left side engine bay support and the bumper mount after being hit with the wire wheel. The mount has been cut off the car.
Driver's side seat track seperated from the pan. I welded in some metal to keep the tracks the correct distance apart.