1967 Pontiac Lemans budget build - Episode five, tail light panel install

Episode one, introduction.

Episode two, trunk panel install part one.

Episode three, trunk panel install part two.

Episode four, door rust repair.

Episode five, tail light panel and rear crossmember.

Episode six, passenger quarter panel.

Episode seven, driver's quarter panel.

Episode eight, floor pan and rockers, part one.

Episode nine, floor pan and rockers, part two.

Episode ten, frame repair and prep, body drop.

Episode eleven, radiator core support and miscellaneous rust repair.

Episode twelve, trunk repair and more miscellaneous rust repair.

Episode thirteen, fender and inner fender repair.

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As of today I am a week short of three months since I began my rust-replacing binge. The trunk and wheelhouses took most of that time and took much longer than I thought.

In this episode I replace the tail light panel. Here's the new panel, along with the floor pan and the rear frame crossmember:

It's a GTO panel, but that's all that seemed to be available at the time. I may modify it into Lemans configuration, or maybe I'll stick with the GTO appearance because the GTO taillights are way cooler than the Lemans. I'll decide that later.

Here's what I started with:

I don't like the fit of that trunk lid. It sticks out 1/4" at least. Hmm.

You can see that the car took a pop to the back, probably by being backed into a pole. It appeared to be a light hit but turned out to be quite a bit worse, some of which was hid by the bumper:

The damage goes into the tail light panel, the trunk panel flange, and the trunk lid as well. In fact, the spotweld flange was pushed in a good inch and a half, and the lip was completely doubled over in one spot. 

As you can see, I started by removing the rear bumper (no easy task). It is held on by a bumper bracket on each side of the frame with two bolts each, and a center bracket that attaches to the rear frame rail, also with two bolts.

Rusty bolts.

After failing to wrench the bumper bracket bolts off I got out the cutting wheel and split the threads right down the middle lengthwise and through the nut. I then pried off the two halves of the nut and popped the bolt right out. But for the center bracket I needed to move the rear crossmember back just to gain access to the bolts. It was pulled rearward, mostly likely due to a tow hook.

You can also see that I have already removed the rear crossmember. It was heavily damaged and rusty. Also, the rear frame extensions were no longer level to each other, with the passenger side up by about two inches. I cover that repair in episode ten.

Now to remove the tail light panel itself. There are a million spotwelds holding this thing in, and I wanted to save the weatherstrip gutter portion of the old tail light panel without damaging it. A lot of these cars are rusted here but mine was very good, so I wanted to be able to sell it on ebay. So I used a spotweld cutter where the panel connected to the quarter panel, rather than doing any grinding or prying:

I tried not to bore through both layers, but that didn't always work out. As you can see, the factory workers got pretty crazy with their spotweld machines. The spotwelds in the weatherstrip gutter attach to the inner trunk brace as well as the tail light panel.

I used the spot weld cutter on the driver's side and also the center trunk latch brace as well:

You can see again in this pic that the damage was more than minor. At one point I was tempted to try to fix it, but once the bumper was off I could see that not only was there panel damage, it was also rusty along the lower pinch weld. 

Buying the new (expensive) tail light panel was justified.

The next step was to cut the panel down the middle horizontally. I also made two vertical cuts, up behind the panel so as to free the sides. The top half popped right out:

Good.

Next I made a rough cut above the lower spotweld flange and removed the lower half of the panel. This left a rusty remnant of the panel where it was spot welded to the trunk panel flange:

There are several ways to remove the remains of the rough cut, including using an air chisel. I don't have an air chisel, and I didn't want to use the spotweld cutter for fear of cutting through both layers, but a youtuber just used vice grips and a hammer and hand chisel. That's what I did. I tapped the chisel blade in between the layers and pried up the flange. Then I grabbed the flange with the vice grip and rolled it up, which either broke the spotweld or tore the metal around it.

This was slow work, but not terribly hard, and it had the bonus of leaving very little collateral damage:

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the doubled over trunk flange. 

Here's a closer view of where that used to be:

The horizontal slash of surface rust near the latch bracket was a raised area of secondary damage where the paint had broke off. So a little dolly work brought the panel flat, although as you can see it still needs a bit more work. I ground down the remnants of the old spotwelds, then wire brushed the whole thing. 

The next step was to patch the rust. I mentioned in another episode the cut and butt method used by a youtuber named Fitzee, who does amazing metal repair work. He doesn't like making templates or creating patches by trimming and fitting them. Instead he puts in patches by overlapping the new piece on top of the area to repair. He puts in a few temporary spotwelds, then uses the angle grinder at a 45 degree angle to cut through both panels little by little, stitch welding as he goes. The 45 degree angle has the effect of closing up the kerf left by the cutting wheel.

The double cut allows the two surfaces to be brought even, little by little. Once a few stitch welds are put in, he double cuts a little further and puts in more spot welds. So the patch starts out placed on top of the panel but is brought even in stages, which keeps the patch aligned as he welds it in. So, no templates or fitting patches to holes.

This technique worked extremely well. I used it to repair this rusted section:

Here's the repair after grinding the welds and cutting contour of the lip:

Now I can start prepping the opening. 

Fitting the tail light panel was difficult. It's inevitable that the car will change shape when structure is removed. I didn't install any bracing across the trunk opening, not thinking it was needed because of the large amount of structure that remained. As a result the trunk opening did widen a bit, but I used a ratchet strap, discussed below, to close up the gap. 

As mentioned before, the trunk lip stuck out too far when I first got the car. Putting the trunk in even in back makes the side gaps cattywompus. That means I will need to cut and move the edge of the quarters. It needs to be done, but I'm not in the mood right now.

So I'll keep going on the tail light panel for now. Both inner side braces, the center brace, and of course any remaining pieces of the old tail light panel need to be removed in order install the tail light panel. And, the brackets need to be put back in the right position. So before removing them I took some measurements, like the distance between the trunk floor and the intersection point of the quarter and the tail light panels. 

The two little welds need to be cut at the bottom of each bracket. I used a Dremel with a tiny cutting wheel, which allowed me to undermine the welds to the point where I could rock the brace and break the welds without damaging the brace or the trunk panel. Here are the pieces:

The way was now clear. Ultimately the tail light panel should go in with a minimum of hammering, wacking, and pulling. If it's a hard fit it may not go fully into place, which would be a disaster if you start welding. It had already went in and out several times by the time I got to this point, and I was starting to get worried. It just didn't want to go all the way home. 

I spent a good deal of time thinking about what the problem might be. At first I thought it was the repair I did to the trunk panel extension. Or maybe my hammer and dolly work changed things when I fixed the damage. Or it could be the factory built the car this way.

As it turned out there were three main things I did to make it fit. First, there were a few unground, undollied original spot welds on the various flanges. Second, the vertical part of "eyebrow" of the passenger quarter panel was pushed in. Third, I didn't realize that the bottom lip of the tail light panel was not a straight line. There's a rise in the center, which means the trunk pan flange also has a rise. 

So I made sure all the mating surfaces were flat. I pounded out the damage to the quarter panel eyebrow, and I tweaked the trunk panel flange by simply bending it with my hands to make it conform to the tail light panel shape. After some work the tail light panel slipped right in. 

If it goes in relatively easy, then I know it is going into the right position.

Now that the tail light panel fits I needed to get ready for welding. Although I had given the trunk panel flange a good wire brushing it still had evidence of rust. I used Rustoleum "rusty metal primer" here instead of POR 15, because nothing will stick to POR 15.

That's not a beer.

I then cleaned off the edge of the trunk panel flange, drilled the holes for the plug welds, and sprayed the lip with weld through primer:

As mentioned, the trunk opening had widened at some point, so I put a ratchet strap across the opening and pulled in until the trunk lid gaps looked good:

I also had to take a ratchet strap diagonally from the driver's side trunk pan lip over and up to the passenger side weather strip flange in order to bring up the driver's side of the opening. I realized later that the reason this needed to be done was the passenger side frame extension was bent up about 2 inches.  

I then clamped the bottom flange together as shown above and started tacking it in from the underside with the MIG, rechecking the trunk lid fit as I went. Then around the tail lights: 

You can see the gap is spot on, and the trunk lid lines up flat with the quarter panel. This side was the low side, with the trunk edge initially sitting 1/2" proud of the quarter panel. That got fixed with the diagonal ratchet strap. But the protruding lip of the trunk was still lurking.

This all is very a good reason to leave the trunk lid in place, to ensure that not only the gaps remain good, but also for the trunk to fit properly to the opening. 

Next came the trunk bracing. Once again I needed to make sure the alignment of the trunk lid, the gaps, and the way the trunk lid seated against the weatherstrip gutter  remained correct before welding. Plus, as I mentioned above, when I removed the side braces with the spot weld cutter I had sometimes drilled through both layers of metal. So I filled in the holes in the brace's spot weld lip with sheet metal so as to have something to plug weld to. 

The trunk braces intersect at the joint where the tail light panel and quarter panel weatherstrip gutter meet. This means a lot of careful alignment, checking and rechecking the fit of the trunk lid before plug welding.

Here's the driver's side:

I have seen that screwdriver for several months now. Wonder where it went?

And the passenger side:

And the trunk latch:

I knew I had got it right when the braces fell right back to the original positions.

Done, finally. This panel replacement was a lot of work, something I've never done before. I really took my time making sure I didn't overlook something. It had to fit right, because I wasn't about to cut it back out. Here's the finished product:

I then POR 15'd the underside:

Because POR 15 likes rusty metal, it is enough to prep the panel with a good wire brushing. POR 15 actually seeps inside seams and crevices as well. Neat stuff, but it's horrible to clean up afterwards. Don't get it on your hands or any surface that will later be painted. You can't get it off, and nothing will stick to it.

Next episode: The passenger quarter panel.