Work project 250GTE

How much of that filler is factory? As I understand it, these cars were sort of known for being thrown together.

In reply to Ditchdigger:

Care to go into more detail about the problems with soda blasting?

In reply to petegossett:

I dont think the soda blasting was any issue, it just uncovered more problems than anticipated, leaving well enough alone and all that.

That is all factory lead. Yes there is a lot of it and the whole car was covered with a smoothing coat of some sort of filler as well. This was all under the factory layer of paint.

My issue with the soda blasting is that it makes a huge mess. I spent 3 hours pressure washing and steam cleaning every nook and cranny when the shell came back and it was still leaking out of everywhere. For months I could tap any part of the frame with a rubber mallet and it would look like a blizzard underneath. I realize the odd construction methods on this car leaves lots of little pockets for buildup and that is part of the problem but I have worked on a few other cars that were soda blasted and they have the same issue. In particular a 56 Continental that was soda blasted 6 years ago during a bare metal respray and even now when you get up under the dash for any work you have to vacuum up the white dust from the carpets. It just never seems to go away.

There is some debate to the fact that the blaster also warped the alloy bonnet by blasting both sides. He says no and that he removed a fair bit of filler, The manufacturer of his equipment says there is no way he should have hit both sides of a thin aluminum piece like he did. It didn't even fit the car anymore when we got it back and I had to take that piece to the extremely talented folks at A&M Deluxe customs for some specialty metal finishing. They managed to shrink it back and reshape it to perfection. I really can't recommend them highly enough. Some serious talent there.

The painter we use also has issues with soda blasting stating the need for some extra steps in surface prep that are needed with it. He wondered why paint adheres poorly to a soda blasted surface for quite some time and then DuPont released a tech document listing the proper surface prep for any panel treated that way. Confirmed his suspicions. To be fair he also dislikes a lot of things about acid dipping and really can't decide which is the lesser of the two necessary evils.

I myself prefer cutting into and repairing cars that have been dipped.

Would dry ice blasting be a better choice then?

OK lets start with that passenger side trunk corner

Crap and rivets and other crap.

Start by tearing that bit out

Had to pull more out than I expected

Make some new versions.

Tools are still the brake, bead roller, shear and a shrinker/stretcher.

Welding them in

Then move over to the other side

Done with the far south. More to go.

I'm enjoying this.

Please call into work and take a sick day then spend it giving us the whole story in one go. This is amazing.

Ditchdigger wrote: My issue with the soda blasting is that it makes a huge mess. I spent 3 hours pressure washing and steam cleaning every nook and cranny when the shell came back and it was still leaking out of everywhere. For months I could tap any part of the frame with a rubber mallet and it would look like a blizzard underneath. I realize the odd construction methods on this car leaves lots of little pockets for buildup and that is part of the problem but I have worked on a few other cars that were soda blasted and they have the same issue. In particular a 56 Continental that was soda blasted 6 years ago during a bare metal respray and even now when you get up under the dash for any work you have to vacuum up the white dust from the carpets. It just never seems to go away.

I had a car stripped with plastic beads once, and it was the same thing - years later I still get little beads falling out on the carpet from somewhere.

Have you done any research into the possible problems with soda blasting? I don't claim to have the full story, but as one who is always monitoring the rust removal market, soda has come up in a negative light in the last few years.

As to bodged repairs, I tend to take a kinder view of the people who did the work, needs to be put in context: these were repairs made as fast and cheap as possible, not efforts at restoration. Remember that at one time this car was depreciated to the point where even the cost of a new paint job was more than it was worth.

They served their purpose as evidenced by the fact that the car is still around to land in your hands.

Back to the freeze plugs...if the core plugs were so notorious for leaks, why not machine some threads for a proper seal? Not like this is a budget limited project or that work being a big machine shop challenge. I wonder if the real issue was steel plugs in an alloy block? Epoxy ain't gonna fix that. Sorry for the armchair quarterbacking.

There was a thread/forum with a guy from an Asian country iirc that did AMAZING metal work with a few hammers and home made dollies. Was building a VW Microbus.

This thread is even more awesome!

Looks like some pics are out of order so I am just gonna pic and choose little bits until I can upload some more of the rapidly growing 8GB of pics to my image host. It also appears some of this is out of order. Seeing some more rust removal shots when the car had paint on it.

Fuel tank was HUGE!!!! Pulled it and it wasn't in bad shape at all.

It got a little dent repair, 24 hours of electrolysis on the interior

And a coat of black

Here is the start of the floor. Remember it is a fiberglass on steel sammich.

Peeling that first layer off

I used a combo of Snap-on, drill bit style spot weld cutters and and the harbor freight spring loaded hole saw type. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I couldn't have done it without both.

What was above the insulation looked like this

Which necessitated this

And now I see I forgot the actual repair work and after shots of the floors. I will upload those tomorrow.

I stared at the first front quarter for at least a half hour with the cutoff wheel in my hand asking myself "what if I berkeley it up" over and over before I had the nerve to start in on it.

First cut wasn't enough. I had to go up and back a few more inches to get to clean metal.

Cut all the bad out. Went all the way to replacing the frame outriggers

A few drains that should have been there originally were added. Not that this car will see much rain or anything. Some of what looks like rust holes in there is actually the atomically crappy original welds. It is funny how the chassis was well built to exacting precision and the craftsmanship on the sheet metal work on the body is beautiful but the way in which they were joined together is appalling. I was instructed to leave what was not damaged and not try to improve it if it was visible.

Three tries on the slip roll and brake to match the curves and then some hammer welding to insure the panels didn't warp

Again. Lots of missing pictures showing the buildup of the inner structures and jack points. The paint and body guy congratulated me on how he pretty much dressed these areas with a file and no real filler was needed.

Harbor Freight and Ferrari do not belong together Amazing work,you make it look easy.

So much for a "budget build."

beanco wrote: Harbor Freight and Ferrari do not belong together

I tell you the HF spot weld cutters are higher quality than the Eastwood or any other ones I can find. I bought two almost two years ago and a few hundred spots welds later I just opened the second package.

What is hammer welding?

Adrian_Thompson wrote: What is hammer welding?

When you drop a mass of molten steel across two panels, the molten metal will absorb into the solid metal and begin to cool. Congratulations, you made a "weld".

As it cools, it shrinks. Here comes trouble.

Since it is already fused to the two panels you are trying to join, the weld bead will try to shrink them along with the weld blob.

The result is that you have a distorted panel.

If you were to place a dolly behind the weld blob, and smash the front with a hammer, you could "smoosh" the weld blob so that it expands and lets the two panels like flat again.

At least that is the theory. Takes a lot of practice and figure that you need an hour to do a 1 foot long weld seam if you use this method.

Hammer welding and a shrink disc are what you need to do 100% metal finished work.

And patience, lots and lots of patience that you can bill out to a client!

Note that the common advice of "go slow and don't let the heat build up" has no effect on this phenomena. This is issue with shrinkage of the weld bead itself. It is often stated that only gas or TIG welds can be hammer welded, but it is not true. Just use the correct wire.

In reply to NOHOME:

that's not how hammer welding was explained to me... which is butting two pieces together, heating them up, and then hammering the seam with a dolly so that they join together.

Still takes a lot of practice and time, as you point out.

Ditchdigger- you are a fabricator- what is the correct version of hammer welding?

Nohome nailed it.

What you are describing is the type of welding blacksmiths do and I have never seen that done on auto sheet metal.

It is possible they are both called the same thing. I got a brief course in what I do from a 79 year old guy who was a sheet metal worker in the late 50's and 60's. Very time consuming, labor intensive and LOUD. Wear earplugs because you don't have time to switch from your welding hood to earmuffs.

I do a quarter inch weld and immediately back it up with a dolly and start planishing. It only takes a few seconds for each bit but the constant switching really drags the process out.

NOHOME said: Note that the common advice of "go slow and don't let the heat build up" has no effect on this phenomena. This is issue with shrinkage of the weld bead itself. It is often stated that only gas or TIG welds can be hammer welded, but it is not true. Just use the correct wire.

Exactly!

It is physics. At 2000F. That metal you added is a lot different size than when it gets to room temperature. Going slow and tacking all over doesn't change that.

I missed the last point- what wire should be used when MIG welding mild steel, where you would want to hammer it?

Just a standard ER70S-6 wire. You hammer the actual weld bead. You are trying to squish the weld, not the sheet metal.

Lets say you have two sheets butted up with a sheet metal clamp like this holding them together

Those will give you about an 0.035" gap. You weld the two sheets together and that weld bead contracts drawing that gap down to.... lets say 0.0300" or so. Sometimes more. If you have ever used this style clamp you know how difficult they can be to remove. That is this very shrinkage we have to combat. By striking the bead and stretching/smooshing you can get that gap back. And it has to be done on EVERY weld.

The only speedy way to finish a weld seam is if the panel is off the car and you can run it through the English wheel. Any way, you want to have a separate wheel for this cause its hard on the wheel.

This hobby gets out of control fast.

Interesting discussion regarding hammer welding and body work. I've heard that some people prefer to use silicon bronze wire for body welds. I got the impression that it eliminates or at least minimizes the need for hammer welding, though I have not actually verified that to be the case.

-chris r.

My hat is off to you. As soon as someone handed me a hand-built Ferrari and then went "okay, go cut into it" I'd be sweating bullets.