Mountain Man Trails: 1967 Pontiac Lemans #2 - budget build - Episode eight - repair tail light panel ***updated 1/22/25

October 5th, 2024:

October 6th, 2024:

Episode one, introduction, here.

Episode two, disassembly and assessment, here.

Episode three, rough body work, here.

Episode four, quarters, here.

Episode five, toe panel, rockers, here.

Episode six, fenders, inner fenders, here.

Episode seven, the doors, found here.

Episode eight, tail light panel, hood, here.

Episode nine - Hood, windshield gutter, back glass gutter, found here.

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There are parts on the car that simply need replacing. The tail light panel is one such part. It was hit in two places, it's got significant rust, and it's misshapened. But, it's not available as a reproduction.

That means I must fix it.

This is what I started with:

It's a little hard to see, but it took a hit to the horizontal lip, which pushed it forward a good half inch or so. You can see the arched wrinkle above the impact point where there is secondary damage, and there are three slide hammer holes as well.

Plus, there was what I thought was minor rust around both tail lights and the left eyebrow:

Also, you can see the ill-fitting trim piece resulting from a hit to the corner.

Repairing the Center Hit

I started by stripping the paint, no easy task with this car. The paint just turns to goop and clogs up my flap disk. The wire wheel seems to do the best job, but I still have more work to do:

After welding up the slide hammer holes I moved inside the trunk and started hammering the pushed in area with a piece of heavy steel and a big mallet. This was a lot of work. Once the area was moved back into position a lot of the secondary damage went away, but I still did some hammer and dolly work.

Now that it's close I put on a thin layer of filler:

This is good enough for now.

The Inner Tail Light Corners

Both tail light openings had this rust on the lower inner corners:

You can also see where I welded up some pin holes above it.

So I cut out the rust:

This patch must be constructed out of multiple pieces, in this case, three. I started by making a template of the curve of the corner, then cut out the first piece to that shape.

I added a thin strip to make the step:

I put extra weld in here because the original corner does not have a sharp turn. This allowed me to grind the weld into the more gradual curve. I also welded and ground the back.

Notice also that I left the piece attached. It's much easier to position and weld this way.

Here's the result:

I trimmed the patch to fit and welded it in:

I made the last piece, welded it in, and ground it all smooth:

This came out really nice. The same damage was on the passenger side as well, so the procedure was exactly the same.

The Driver's Side Pinch Weld Area And Corner

There were two rusted areas below the driver's tail light, the pinch weld flange and an 1 1/2" rust hole in the corner below the quarter panel interface:

I wasn't certain I could pull off these repairs. The corner in particular is a complicated shape in a tight area. But doubt or inexperience has rarely dissuaded me from anything.

Sometimes it should have...

I first cut out the pinch weld rust:

I started bending a scrap of sheet metal on my bench vice into the general shape needed. Since the corner turn is somewhat gradual I made partial bends in three locations, one just above my horizontal line, one on my horizontal line, and one just below it. The effect of the combined bends makes for a more gradual corner.

After some fine tuning I made my first test fit:

I liked the shape of the corner, so I started to shape the rest of the patch so it would fit. Then I wire wheeled the trunk flange, hammered and dollied it, then painted on some POR15:

I drilled several holes for spot welds and clamped it into position:

The top right was overlapping so I ran the angle grinder along the top edge and spotted it in. I added spot welds around the perimeter until the weld was continuous, then ground everything smooth:

This came out really nice.

Now for the harder part, that rust hole in the corner. This area is where the tail light panel, trunk panel, and quarter panel all come together. What was missing here was basically the end of the tail light panel, which includes the tail light panel flange that spotwelds to the quarter (which I would call one of the "walls"). Then there's the other "wall" forming a corner with this spotweld flange connects to the rest of the tail light panel. The lower horizontal piece I'll call the "floor," and the upper horizontal piece where the tail light eyebrow trim is held with a sheet metal trim screw is the "roof."

After thinking about it, I decided to create the corner first where the two "walls" join. It's pretty close to a 90. I bent a piece and welded in wall #2 to the right side of the hole. This place is where there is an outside 45 corner where the metal turns forward (inward) to intersect with the bumper recess. I also filled the spot welds on the outside of the quarter to connect the wall #1.

Then I cut the "floor" and a "roof" pieces and welded them in:

This worked surprisingly well. I took the Dremel to the welds and cleaned it all up.

Tail Light Lip

Not only was the driver's side tail light mounting flange rusted, there were some pinholes of rust, around the perimeter of the opening (mentioned above), and the lower inside corners of both tail light openings had rust (repaired above).

When I welded up the pinholes I backed them with a piece of copper to prevent blowthrough.

Then I bent up a patch:

Ignore the gaping rust hole above it for now.

This piece took some work to shape. I bent it on the vice into a long narrow "Z" shape, being careful to get the lines straight, then welded it in:

Looks good, especially compared to what was there:

The Eyebrow

I got a cold dose of reality when I started digging into this repair. I thought the rust was minor, but that's not what I found when I started working on it. A bit of archaeology tells all. I started wire wheeling the area, and amidst the clouds of white dust my eyes beheld an emerging canyon of rust.

Here's what it looked like after stripping:

Oh, my. Not only is there extensive rust on the eyebrow, complicating matters is the collision damage, which carried damage into the quarter panel.

I needed to move the area rearward before I could deal with the rust. I put the narrow end of a flat piece of steel inside the trunk against the vertical corner area and beat it rearward with a mallet until the profile returned to its approximate position.

With the area about where it's supposed to be, I cut out the area above the tail light where the panels formerly overlapped, and also cut apart the side area of the eyebrow:

At this point I was creating maneuvering room for continuing the repair. I won't fix all this until I'm satisfied with the shape of the quarter panel.

I made a couple of templates from the undamaged passenger side. Here's the eyebrow template:

The other template (not pictured) is for the vertical curve of the side of the eyebrow, perpendicular to the first template. I might not need these templates since I will in effect be building to the trim piece, but it's nice to have them just in case.

This repair was intimidating me. Not only was I rebuilding a complicated shape, the eyebrow trim piece needed to look right.

First the upper patch:

I did a "cut and butt" along the top and tacked it in. The line for the eyebrow shape came partly from the template and partly from the passenger side eyebrow trim. Since it's a mirror image of the driver's side, I flopped it over to trace the shape. In addition, the horizontal line needed to be a straight line from the trunk edge.

I made the cut then started on the pieces that make up the overlapping flange. The bottom first:

This patch has an offset along the bottom edge. I found a scrap piece of metal with an offset flange already formed in it and rolled over the edge on the vice to blend into the shape of the area above the tail light opening.

I spotted it in, then formed another patch to intersect with the lower flange. The two pieces were spot welded together to complete the close-in of the horizontal area. I filled in my stitch welds and ground them smooth: