Be aware, bondo dust is carcinogenic.

Yep, ahead of you on that one, I wear a 3M dual cartridge respirator for that work!

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Late night work...





I decided to patch it up as you can see. No one makes a patch panel tall enough to reach up to that place almost in the middle of the height where the rot needs to be cut out. So I figured if I have to make a patch, what's one more?

I basically tried to square things up as much as possible to make my patches easier to cut and fit. For the smaller hole I made above the original "bondo basket" I found, it was pretty easy to take the rectangle piece I cut out and use that as a template to cut a new piece. The lower hole was a little more difficult as it was not completely square and there was not a good way to get thin cardboard behind it to trace it out. I had to use poster board above it, cut, fit, cut, fit, repeat and there we go.





The patches were just cut from some left over stock I had that is the same gauge as the original fender. I was probably too cautious to cut it exactly true because I did have to do quite a bit of dressing and grinding to get each one to fit the hole with very little gap. I do believe for a butt weld with the mig it is best to get the metal edges to be pretty close to each other.

You can imagine how long the fitment took! :eek:

Hopefully I can blast soon, weld them up, grind them down, and get to spreading some body filler.

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Took some time off on Friday afternoon to get on with the work on Driver's side fender. First up was the welding...



I also filled these small holes by using that copper spoon behind the panel.





I admit I was pretty agressive here. I guess because I thought I had the copper spoon it was time to just pull the trigger and feed the wire into the thing... Of course that just meant more grinding - I am not an official welder, just a "trigger puller" who puts more metal into things than needed. It really showed up when I was stitching the panels in. I got carried away with the deal and let the panel get too hot. Take a look at the concave "warped" area.





After grinding it all down and checking with a straight edge, it was time to get some filler on the thing and bring it back. Unfortunately that warped area could not be adressed from the back side because of the bracing. I reckon if I was not so lazy I would have removed the spot welds for the full length of the bracing, did some hammer and dolly work, welded the brace back on, etc, etc. Everything is a compromise between the time you have to do the work and what you plan to get out of it. Since the amount of filler needed would be less than 1/4" deep anywhere on the fender patch area I decided to get out the gallon jug and go for it.



This stuff is worth the price! Thanks to Frank of Long Island for the tip. It has been years since I used any body filler and for this repair I thought I would need quite a bit. I didn't even use half of what I originally mixed. The depth of what I needed to fill was more shallow than it looked.

As I went along I did check things with a straight edge.




You can see I had some low spots yet to fill in, but that did not take too much. I used a DA with 120 grit to knock it all back down and smooth it all out. As you guys know, most of the filler ends up on the floor.

I did have a couple of pinholes that needed some spot glaze but with this Evercoat product called Rage, the pinholes were few and far between.



There were some other spots on the fender that got some attention too, a small spot I welded up underneath the headlight housing, a place under the stainless steel molding back towards the door, and another place up near the front under the stainless steel molding.



I do need to finish removing the white paint so that I can prime this thing. I am thinking that with some primer surfacer this fender should come out pretty smooth.


Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

The passenger side work went much, much better. You can tell from the photos - very little warpage, and the body filler went on smooth and set up well.





After the welding and body filler work it was time to remove the old layers underneath the white of the two-tone back on the driver's side. Whoever suggested that I take the white sections down to the bare metal was right on the money. There was various places where the metal had rusty pits and that had come up through the paint layers. At first I just used a plastic wheel to remove everything, but then after checking up on the pitting I decided to break out the sand blaster.



The passenger side fender was coated once in the areas where it was bare and then also in the places where the body filler was located. Upon sanding the entire exterior of the sheet metal, the whole fender was primed with two more coats of DTM primer surfacer. Time will tell on final sanding and how much goes to the floor, but I am happy with my initial look on the surface of the areas where the patches were welded in and the body filler work was done.





I haven't taken any pictures of the backside of the fenders, but they were cleaned up a little bit and painted with black rustoleum. I did thin the first coat pretty good to get behind the brace at the rear of each fender, and then gave it a good coat. Thankfully things are pretty stout with fenders - very little body work outside of the patches that were welded in.

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Are we having fun yet?

After scurrying around trying to beat a temperature drop and daylight wasting to prime the passenger side fender again and put a full coat on the driver's side look what I did...





Dufus me happened to knock the paint gun out of its stand and although it did not fall far the tit on the bottom of the red bulb filter broke off in the fitting... aaaarrrrgggghhhh! Tonight was like one of those stupid reality TV shows where idiots play around like they can put a car together in a week.

Ridiculous.

I did use the following glaze to prep my pinholes and what have you. This Evercoat brand is not cheap but I like its characteristics so far. It is super smooth and easy to sand. It set up quickly. However, I did not get the chance to paint until this afternoon so it did sit for quite some time.



I don't know what everybody uses for a primer gun, but I do like what I am using. It is a cheap HF unit but it sprays very well and lays the primer really good. It has a 1.8 tip - the primer surfacer goes on pretty good and since this is a primer gun, not rebuildable (at least I don't think so), and it's cheap, once I get done with this project it can be tossed if need be. I have a Devilbiss Finishline gun to spray the SSU topcoats.



Before applying the glaze and next coat of primer surfacer I did some block sanding on the passenger side fender. Basically I sprayed the hi build primer on the low spots where I put in patches, used Rage Ultra, etc, trying to meet the red that was already on the fender. Things looked pretty good. I did wet sand as you can see. It's messy, I know, but when the water runs down the panel it is easy to see the high's and low's. Plus it keeps the sandpaper from filling up so much.





After everything was dry the next coat of primer surfacer was put on and then after a couple of days the glaze was applied.





So.... to fast forward back to tonight if you are still following, the passenger side fender looks really good with the wet primer and looking down the panel as you can see.





However, if you look at this photo here...



you can see that my Evercoat Metal Glaze is showing through. This is after two good coats of primer surfacer. I did reduce the surfacer a little more than normal, but not that much, so my build is not as much as the other coat of primer I put on this fender.

what gives? Anyone else use this glaze? I followed the manufacturer's instructions pretty closely. Maybe I should have put less reducer in the primer surfacer? :confused:

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

After another several hours of block, prime, block, etc, I am reminding myself that we are saving quite a bit of money by going DIY.

The previous issue with the glaze showing through the primer was just simply too much reducer. Problem easily saved with the most recent coat of primer/surfacer.







Passenger side is almost ready for a top coat, but the driver's side needs a little more attention. I did get around to mechanically stripping most of the white today. Some of the places I stripped on the door had over 1/4" of Bondo 3M Putty! I guess someone years ago had decided the best way to fill the mounting holes for mirrors on either door was to simply hammer the metal down and fill the dent they made.



The plan next is to simply get some primer on this unprotected metal, remove all of the glass and door guts, and strip those edges without getting too much in the interior.







The stripping was done with a couple of these...
http://www.harborfreight.com/4-12-in-polycarbide-abrasive-wheel-60571.html

and a few of these 80 grit...
http://www.harborfreight.com/7-in-80-grit-sanding-discs-3-pc-69983.html

inexpensive tools to strip so much paint, no warp to the panels, and no sand all over the place - although there was quite a bit of dust. Most of the layers underneath of the crow's feet white paint were just fine, but there were places where pitted rust shown up. For those places I did spot blast with sand to get it all out, but things seem very solid and pretty straight.

Once we get going on these doors, it will be time to attempt an installation of 55-57 Thunderbird door handles. I read about the mild custom modification on another site somewhere and it seems pretty simple to do. (well, when I look at it anyway) The irony in the mod is that they are actually cheaper brand new than the passenger car door handles. Go figure.

the only thing I am missing is the video footage of the people that drove by the house and slowed down as they watched me work on this thing half the day :p. One guy with a 66 Fairlane showed up though - had a 427 cammer installed and that thing had ever appearance of an original restoration car (minus the keystones and nice tires) ... of course when you heard the thing coming down the street you lost any inkling that it was stock!


Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Man this thread is huge! A few more photos of continued progress.
 
 
 
Hopefully I can get all glass out, the door guts out, and then strip the edges underneath the glass seals, etc. They have not been done since the car was new. I do have new seals, but wanted to remove all of the old stuff and then paint. That last paint job about 25 years ago was just taped up to the edges of the trim and sprayed. Surprised things have held up this long.

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

You still need to take care even with those discs as they still create some heat and it doesn't take much to get warping.

Oh man what a night! :mad:

My plan was to spend a few minutes removing the rear glass. I had stripped up to the edges of the stainless trim as not to scuff them up so to get the rest of the metal there and underneath of the seal (windshield and the doors/quarter windows will come next) the glass and SS trim needed to be removed. Right. A few minutes. Jessup don't kid yourself.

On with the "show"

First off, I say to myself, "Jessup, you better get out the manual and read up just to check it out, there may be a hidden clip or screw or retainer that you can't see."

Now mind you, I have installed and removed the windshield 4-5 times and was very familiar with that and felt pretty confident about the rear glass. I read up on the pages in the manual.



Good, got it, ready to go. Now out to the garage to remove the rear glass.



The seal was still on the soft side, but you could also see places where it had split or come apart and just needed to be replaced.






I used the tool above to pry the edge of the seal along the length of the sheet metal edges and tried to push the glass out like the manual says to do. I spent over an hour trying to nudge, push, tug, shove, cajole, tap, move, slide, pry, coax, cut, pull this 62 year old installation of rear glass from FoMoCo. I decided to cut the seal on the inside of the car.





and it finally started to budge.

How, I have no idea. For some reason it seemed that the passenger side was glued in heavily.



Let me just say that through all of this frustration I was glad of one thing... I did not gorilla the thing out. If I had done so, I would have surely cracked the glass. Look what was hiding under the side trim on the passenger side.



Thank you Ford, no help there lol.

I thought there would be one on the driver's side but there wasn't.



It all came out fine but I am concerned about how to that screw back in there and then put that side trim over the screw after everything is fitted. How will that work?



Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com