1967 Pontiac Lemans #2 - budget build - Episode eight - rust, repair, tail light panel

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 and rocker, here.

Episode six, fenders, inner fenders, here.

Episode seven, the doors, found here.

Episode eight, tail light panel, 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 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 inch or so. You can see the arched wrinkle where there is secondary damage, and there are three slide hammer holes as well.

Plus, there was what appeared to be minor rust around both tail lights:

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 needed to do 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:

It would be very difficult to recreate this area out of one or two pieces, especially since all I have are typical hand tools. No shrinkers, stretchers, or English wheels. So 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 will allow me to grind the weld into the more gradual corner. I also welded and ground the back. 

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 exact 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: The pinch weld flange below the driver's tail light was rusted away, and a there was a 1 1/2" rust hole in the corner below the quarter panel interface. These would be repairs and I wasn't certain I could pull off. The corner in particular is a complicated shape in a tight area.

I first cut out the pinch weld rust:

Using a scrap of sheet metal I started bending the patch. Since the corner is a somewhat gradual turn I bent the patch in three locations on the bench vise, one just above my horizontal line, one on my horizontal line, and one just below it. The effect of the combined bends is make 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 grind 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 went around the perimeter until solid, then ground everything smooth:

This came out really nice. 

Now for the hard 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 the end of the tail light panel, the tail light panel flange that spotwelds to the quarter, the connecting "floor" that forms a corner with the flange, and the "roof" of the area where the tail light eyebrow trim is held with a sheet metal trim screw.

After thinking about it, I decided to create the corner first. It's pretty close to a 90. I bent a 90 and welded in the first piece to the right side of the rust hole where the metal turns into a 45 to intersect with the bumper recess. I also filled the spot welds on the outside of the quarter. 

Then I made the "floor" and a "roof" pieces and welded it all together:

This worked surprisingly well. I took the Dremel to the welds and cleaned it all up. Then a little but of putty:

Sanded out then some primer:

This came out really good, much better than I expected. 

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). 

I welded up the pinholes, backing the hole with a piece of copper to prevent blowthrough. 

Then I bent up a patch:

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 wire brushing tells all. Amidst the clouds of white dust it turns out there was thick layer of Bondo simply smeared right over the 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 these 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 when making cuts or fashioning patch pieces.

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 piece has an offset along the bottom edge, plus it rolls into the rest of the tail light panel. I found a scrap piece of metal with an offset flange already formed in it and rolled over the edge on the vice. 

I spotted it in, then made the upper flange to intersect with the lower flange. This was spot welded to the lower flange. I filled in my stitch welds and ground them smooth:

I'll add to this as I complete more work.