Mountain Man Trails: 1967 Pontiac Lemans #2 - budget build - episode four, rust repair installment one, quarters

October 5th, 2024:

October 6th, 2024:

Episode one, introduction, here.

Episode two, disassembly and assessment, here.

Episode three, rough body work, here.

Episode four, rust repair, installment one, here.

Episode five, rust repair, installment two, here.

Episode six, rust repair, installment three, here.

Episode seven, the doors, found here.

10/30/24 There are several rust repairs to make:

Both lower rear quarters (this Episode)
Wheel opening lips, both quarters (this Episode)
Lower rear of both wheel houses (this Episode)
Passenger front toe panel (Episode five)
Passenger door skin (Episode seven)
Driver's door (Episode seven)
Rockers (Episode five)
Rear window gutter (TBD)
Lower fender rust (Episode six)
Driver's tail light area (Episode six)
Driver's front inner fender rust (Episode six)

For most of these repairs I will use replacement patch panels. I purchased left and right lower rear quarter patches ($191.98 for the pair) from Jeg's, the left and right side wheel lip patches for $84.97 for the pair from Amazon, and the rear deck panel ($89.98) from Jeg's. The toe panel, the rear of the wheelhouses, and the passenger rocker, however, will be repaired with scrap sheetmetal I have laying around, so that means total expenditure for all the rust repair is $366.93 plus my labor, which is free to me.

As far as my work process, I'm going to be moving around the car doing various repairs. I do not plan to actually finish any one task immediately. One reason is because I don't want to spend extended periods scrunched over a repair. My ol' body can't handle that, so I'll alternately weld high, grind low, and cut laying down.

Passenger Quarter

Here's what I started with:

The opening was crudely radiused by a prior owner to make room for these big ugly tires, which included destroying the wheel house inner flange. So I will be working on both the wheel house and the quarter lip.

The lower rear of the quarter has evidence of bondo:

I cut it off and found this:

Ugh. The rust was just covered over, and the lower inch was fiberglass only. No metal.

This repair is first, because the quarter panel lip position is set by the position of this patch panel.

These are what Jeg's sent me:

They are actually pretty heavy, and preliminary test fitting is encouraging. I have discovered, however, that the metal is quite soft. Clamping a piece in a vice grips will dent them.

Before I can install them I need to fix a problem. The front of the passenger side wheelhouse is fine:

But oh, the back:

That is a 4" diameter hole, found under a layer of stranded fiberglass resin. Someone had simply glassed right over the hole, rust and all. In fact, this industrious person "fixed" all of the rust in the car by covering it with either fiberglass or bondo, sometimes measuring an inch in thickness.

Ok, the order of repair is, the hole in the wheel house, the lower quarter, and then rebuild the flange for the wheel house opening. They all sort of come together at once before the wheel lip patch panel can be installed.

First, the wheel house rust. I cut out the rust, wire brushed everything, painted on some POR15 on the interior surfaces, and fashioned a patch out of some scrap:

It needs to align with the eventual wheel house flange and interface with the lower quarter patch. After stitch welding the piece in place I needed to trim it so I traced a cardboard template and used it to cut the patch to the shape of the lower quarter.

Here the finished repair:

You can see I've already started to install the lower rear quarter patch. You can also see I added the first piece of the wheel house flange (top center.)

So let's go ahead and cover the lower quarter panel patch. I made a cut just below the character line:

The actual seam, however, will end up being above the character line. I cut it here because the best chance for avoiding warpage (besides using good welding technique) is to be close to a ridge in the metal. The stiffness of the ridge helps minimize warpage.

I wire brushed the trunk drop area, ground and prepped the lower flange, welded up a few rust pinholes, and gave everything a coat of POR15. I overlaid the patch panel to check for interference and alignment. Looks really good. I drilled a few holes along the lower and front edges for spotwelds. After checking and rechecking the fit, I clamped it along the lower edge. I also put in a couple of zip screws on the top edge, then filled in a few spot welds on the lower edge.

So the top is still loose. Now it's time to cut and butt. If you followed the previous Lemans build you would remember that I touted a youtuber named Fitzee. His cut and butt technique is as simple as it is effective. This is why I placed the patch panel on top of the damaged area. The idea is to double cut through both panels horizontally about 8 or so inches at a time. The patch can then be pushed even with the original metal and spot welded into place. This process is repeated until the entire distance has been covered. Then the spotwelds can be gradually filled in until it's a solid weld, ground smooth, and prepped for paint.

After cutting and butting the first section of the seam I went ahead and cut the rest of the horizontal line. I then found that the patch panel needed to go up farther. So I ran the cutting wheel through the cut and pushed the patch panel up into place. I had to do this several times to get the fit just right.

here's what it looks like after cut and butt:

There's still a lot to do here, but it lines up well and will be easy to finish.

Passenger Wheel Opening

As mentioned, Some prior "customizer" did violence to both wheel lips to make room for some ugly monster truck tires. Now, I couldn't find anyone who made the repair panel for the Lemans/GTO. So I bought a pair for the same year Chevelle. I was hoping they were close enough so that I could modify them. I reasoned that I could choose to spend oodles on new quarter skins and spend weeks or months installing them (and then modify them because they only sell them for a '66). Been there, done that, out of the question. Or, I could improvise and adapt. That's what I choose. I may have made a mistake, but it's only an $85 mistake.

And actually, when they came in the mail I was pleasantly surprised. The wheel opening was pretty close to the same contour. But they are too short, so it's time to cut and stretch them.

Since the half way point of the opening is sort of flat, that's where I made my cut:

I made a zig-zag cut because I figured that a straight seam would be weaker. You can also see that I marked out a couple of cuts on the front lower portion. This is where the Chevelle horizontal character line is, so I don't needed it because it's higher than the Lemans. Whatever damage the patch panel won't cover at the front edge I'll have make myself. Fortunately, this area is not complicated. The back of the opening is covered by the lower quarter patch panel.

I cut the original quarter panel about two inches away from the butchered opening, and around the perimeter, to get rid of the protruding wheel lip. I then drew a level line below the belt line which approximately corresponds to where I want to position the divided panels. Satisfied with the position, I zip screwed them in place:

Each end seems to match up with the existing lip pretty well. And the curve is a good match. I just need to fill in the gap.

First I shimmed out the two pieces until they were aligned, then welded a piece of scrap in the middle, above the wheel lip area. I didn't fill it to the top because I am going to use only the bottom three or so inches of the panel.

I then welded in the underside flange, the part that will spot weld to the wheel house flange. That left the peaked character line area to fill, which needed a bend. Over to the vice for a little bending and shaping, then grinding.

So it took a total of three pieces. Here's how it looks:

I am very happy with this. It fits perfectly.

Now it's time to reconstruct the wheelhouse flange. As mentioned above, I had already put in the first piece of flange when I was fixing the rear of the wheel house.

In order to get the wheelhouse to line up correctly with the quarter patch panel, I screwed the patch back on the car and got some narrow strips of sheetmetal from the scrap bin. I clamped each piece inside the patch panel's wheel lip, and it was pretty much a straight shot all the way across the top. I was able to form the entire flange from three pieces.

Now I needed a way to keep the pieces in place because I needed to remove the patch panel to weld everything. So I cut up some clothes hanger wire, spaced the pieces vertically along the gap, and spot tacked them into place:

I actually thought this was pretty clever. Having endured a less than successful recreation of this flange with the prior Lemans, getting this part to line up exactly right was my highest priority.

Front:

Back:

Both the front and back are going to require a good deal of work to make them interface with the patch panels.

Having established the proper contour of the opening, I began filling in the gaps:

And here's the completed wheel house:

And some rust prevention:

Now I'm ready for the cut and butt. I rescrewed the repair panel into position and cut around the radius through both layers, about eight inches at a time, pressing the replacement panel even and spot welding as I went. I also made sure the waste piece did not fall down into the trunk drop area.

Here's the result:

It lines up nice, though there are a couple of low areas. A little hammer and dolly work ought to take care of that.

I turned to rebuilding the front lip transition. First I created the flange and spot welded it to the wheel house flange, then started filling in the rest of the quarter panel:

The wheel opening has a sort of flat area that gradually blends into the lower part of the quarter. So I fashioned a little strip for that purpose, and welded it in as shown. I have yet to finish it at this point.

Now comes a ton of patient welding to close up all along the cut points. Updates to follow.

Driver Quarter:

It's basically the same thing as the passenger side, so I'll just post pics. Here's the before:

I cut the lower rear:

This side is even better than the passenger side. I wire brushed and coated it with POR15:

Sigh. I found rust on the back of the wheelhouse:

I marked it, cut it out and made a patch:

I ground it smooth:

11/9/24 I cut and butted the lower quarter patch:

Now, this time I did not weld the bottom first. I vicegripped the lower edge and did the top. I think this worked better because I could pull away the lower edge and remove the waste a lot easier.

Patch divided and test fitted:

I should note that I got a little smarter for this side. By creating a longer tongue the two pieces overlap and are easier to line up for welding:

The piece at the top is just temporary to keep the gap properly located.

11/12/24 As with the passenger side, now that I have the outside panel modified and fitted I can build the wheelhouse out to it. Here's the finished area: