Week #75

Well I think I'm back at it. We've built the house, moved in and the garage is all set up for work... air supply hooked up, benches made, yada, yada, yada... so I'm gonna try to get back into the swing of getting something done each week. The current project area of "Sandy's Garage" will be updated quickly also due to the fact that my Christmas present was one of those fancy-shmancy digital cameras... no more fillin' up a roll of film befor getting them developed and then goin' through the scanning process.

To refresh your memories, way back when, I had welded in a section on the rear panel that accommodated the P-L-Y-M-O-U-T-H letters. I was not very happy with my work as I had warped things up a bit and was not looking forward to the body work involved in straitening it out. Well while strolling the isles at C@C, I happened across a very nice and very strait rear panel that had been neatly removed from it's donor and was calling my name. The process of replacing the panel seemed to me a better alternative than straitening the one I had. $45 was all that it took, so me and the new panel went home together.

I actually did the removing of the old panel and pre fitting of the "new" old panel back in July not too long after C@C. The process is the same ol' drilling out of the spot welds procedure. This particular panel is a breeze to remove as all the spots are right there on the outside in plain view. The panel comes right off the back with no finagling(?) what-so-ever... although your quarter panels are sorta floppin' in the breeze after removal, especially when the trunk extensions are not present. Anyhoo, got that puppy off in a couple of hours and still had time to "clean up" the remaining "spots" off the back of the car. That's where I left it back in July.

When I was looking over the panel at C@C to determine it's condition, I failed to pick up on a flaw. It wasn't completely my over site as those sneaky sons-of-guns selling the panel had cleverly disguised a defect. You see, the key hole had apparently been buggered up somewhere along the way and the seller disguised it by enlarging the hole and giving it back it's normal "look". Without staring right at it could go un-noticed... ok, ok, I blew it, I missed it! My goal for this weekend was to cut the key hole from the old old panel and splice it into the new old panel. I cut the hole out as part of a 3" square, laid it down over the bad hole, marked the cutting lines and went to cutting. The only thing to remember here is to pay attention to which side of the line you cut on! The thickness of the cut off wheel will seem huge if you cut wrong... and you'll probably end up making a mess of a simple patch.

After cleaning up the area I had just cut out... let me pause here and pass along that I used a small, fine metal file to clean the edges up. I have finally learned that with a die grinder it is just to easy to get the edge to be welded just enough out of whack to complicate whole thing. I use the fine file and the piece fit so nicely that the rest of the process seemed to go extra smooth. Back to it... I held the old old key hole in it's place on the new old panel with this magnetic thing I had bought years ago but have yet to get any real use out of. It worked great for this. Dropped the welder down in low(heat) and in no time the old old key hole was in it's place on my new old rear panel. No problem.

It felt good to get out in the shop and work on the car again after all these months and I'm looking forward to documenting the process through the MML... it helps keep the enthusiasm up!