I'm not a hater....but

I hate to trash other peoples work, but WOW!.... Whoever did these skins were either drunk - or trying to do a terrible job of it! Check out the rough edges, Very little (if any!) paint or undercoat used and the use of just a few spot welds to attach it all:





The inner fenders where sliced and punched in to fit into the skins wheel arch. No welding here, just sealer and filler:



This method was so poor at sealing to the quarter panel that it came away without any trace!

And the striker panel....the inner piece below is as I found it. It appears as though they started to cut it out, then realized it had to stay, so tried to repair (some of) it. 





Here's just one of the reasons I use dedicated rust paints - if there's a joint, there's gonna be rust:



A little bit of patch work to be done here :(





The dirty work - removing undercoating - 



All cleaned up 

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Website: www.E-TekRestorations.com

HOLY HINGE ISSUES BATMAN!!!!

Ever had one of those days where you chase an issue for what seems like forever, only to find out it's someone elses fault?!  Well that's what ended up happening with the repro hinges on the 68 Camaro project....

Although I was able to get the door reasonably-well lined up with the quarter, the leading edge still wouldn't quite sit even with the front fender for some reason, which is obviously a critical spot that needs to be addressed. After re-checking factory measurements to ensure the door post is properly positioned (no previous damage here), we decided to see if the repor hinges could be the problem:


Although the door bolt holes were off compared to the originals, slotting the door bolt holes in the door didn't help much and looking into the door gap, we could see that the hinge-edge was butting up against the door inner, not allowing it to be adjusted inward enough. So after a bunch of effing around.... we compared the old and new hinges against each other:


Check out all that extra material! That is what is holding the door from sitting inward enough to be flush with the fender. On the next 2 photo's, check out the portion of the hinge next to my thumb:





You can see how the OER repro hinge is WAY off the original. The extra material is what is butting up against the door, stopping it from sliding in enough so the door lines up with the fender.... So a call to the supplier got me another set on the way, but still...this is why repro parts get such a BAD name! 

Time to call CamaroDepot.ca and see what they can do to help....

In the meantime - lets get this quarter started!

Don't forget to check out my website at www.E-tekRestorations.com !

68 Camaro - Right quarter panel replacement

Let's get this quarter panel removal started!

Scraping the edges to reveal spot welds and joints...

                                                       Drilling and separating:

Carefully working all around the edges, 

making sure to leave the parts that don't come with the new panel!

                         Lower rear tail panel: lotsa filler here -
                                   gotta be careful to remove just what's required:

Edges all get cleaned up with grinder:

 Need to remove and replace the inner fender now:

Before going any further, need to address the surfaces that will be covered with new panels so they will be protected from future rust. After removing any old undercoating, paint and scaly rust, I use a Phosphoric Acid Solution to neutralize and treat any remaining surface rust, or rust hiding between parts, in seams or wherever. The Phosphoric Acid t converts Iron Oxide (rust) to Iron Oxite, a black, inert substance that won't continue to destroy the metal surfaces.

After that we can attempt the first fitment of the new quarter panel:

                 After a lot of CAREFUL wiggling, prying, pushing and pulling, it looks pretty good:

Fitting quarter at sail panel - a critical point with many attachmenet points all coming together:

                                               Fitting to taillight panel:

                                   After a lot of tweaking, looks much better already:

                                 Getting into my work! In the trunk working the gaps...

                       Door and quarter looking good together. Lots of gaps to get just right.

                                 Quarter panel to roof seam - fit up nicely after a LOT of work:

Looks done....but still a long way to go...inner fender to quarter requires a lot of work to get close

                                        Welds dressed in glass channel:

                                                       ...and in wheel well...

Where the roof meets the glass channel at the quarter there was a lot of rust that needed to be addressed:

     A new patch panel was measured, cut from 18 gauge metal and shaped to fit, here on the shrinker/stretcher to get the curve right:

                                                        Pretty close!

                                 After drilling holes for spot welds - and a bunch more tweaking -
                                                    it was time to weld it in:

                                                           1st dressing :

                                                       Second dressing

                                          Quarter to roof seam next to it also welded up:

                           Rust Bullet seals everything up until we come back to finish it up:

                                Time to switch sides and repeat the entire process!

The view from inside the trunk looks the same as the other side used to....but we'll fix that.




Ughhh - this side is even worse than the other. Combined with the rust up front, some bubbles along the sides and lots of filler in there....

 Me thinks we'd better consider a roof skin......

 

Thanks and Stay tuned!

Don't forget to check out my website for lots more restoration and rad-rides:

www.E-tekRestorations.com