Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 1969 Roadrunner revival

He made that thing, I mean yeah there was a shell of an old car to start with but he changed so much on the car, made the roof, all that wood work framing is finger jointed maple, the dude did it all himself, it's really an amazing build. He really just plain built the car, I mean... chassis, everything, I can't even begin to explain it all.



He emailed me a pic of the interior... oh my god, stunning.

It's on my work computer or i'd post it.

workin on that.

you work? i thought all you did was sit around all day drinking beer and thinking up ways to make us jealous of your skills?

That would be a sweet job! Lol!!

Wow, the car turned out great. Thought it was pretty amazing when it was in pieces.

Ok guys, moving along..

I did a little old school metal bumping with the old martin hammer & dolly set tonight.

Straightened this area a little.

Before:



After:



Trimmed the edge and step flanged for the quarter skin.





A little door jamb work and I can hang this quarter skin.

I think I'm going to make a new goal. To ride in that car, holding Dave's beer, so we can see - er - make sure there's no wheel hop issues or something. Shotgun! Any back seaters?

4

hail damage on there Dave?

No it was old body repair.

The driver's side of the car in the rear quarter had suffered some sort of impact, hard to say if it was a tree, another car hitting this one, maybe this car sliding sideways into something... hard to say what happened 30-35 years ago but the dents on the top of that quarter are old hammer dents.

Metal bumping is truly a bit more of an art than simply pounding out dents. You need a good hammer and dolly set and you have to be sure you support the opposite side of the metal with the dolly with care to NOT strike directly on the dolly.

This is the most common mistake with hammers and dollies. People see the hammer and see the dolly and assume that you line them up directly and bang away to straighten out a panel.

You never want to hear that "ping" noise when striking with the body hammer. If it pings then you are hitting directly on the dolly and you are flattening the sheetmetal between the tools. this results in stretching, which is bad.

You always want to support a low spot with the dolly behind the panel and strike a high spot with the hammer on the outside, this raises the low spot with hand pressure on the dolly and the hammer sinks the high spot.

If you "ping" then you are stretching metal, if you stretch it then it doesn't fit within the area any longer so you will have an area that needs to bulge either in or out.

It gets a little more complicated than that with the selection of hammers and dolly types used but that is the number one rule, never "ping".

Excellent info Dave. I would have done exactly as you said and line up hammer to dolly.

I'm learning that my best bet is to line up Dave and the damaged area, cut a check and be done...

Bad door jamb piece coming out.



New piece from donor car trimmed to fit



There actually were some cracks in the replacement piece which I think is normal, I welded them up and installed the new plate.

Welded from the back side to try and keep the outside grinding and cleanup down. I still need to get into some of the inside radiuses with a die grinder stone but it's not bad and the door shuts great now.



I hung the LH quarter skin tonight also.

I have to finish my wheel house welds, actually I need to do all of my bottom welds, but it's tacked up top, tail pan is welded and door jamb welded. Fits nice.

Looking like a car again, great job you are doing Dave.

looking good there Dave. mind if i ask how much left until the earnest paint stripping and paint work starts? or do you not want to think about that just yet?

Very shortly. I need to pick up a spool of smaller mig wire for these long top side quarter panel weld seams but then my welding will be nearly done. I know I will run into a couple of small patch tasks as i work my way forward on the car with my sanding, but it will be so good to have the back half all welded.

I'll probably be sanding on saturday, if not sooner. (working on removing the rest of the paint)

sounds good. i look forward to it. now, go have a beer!

Dave,

Might be a dumb question here but. When you paint are you going to mask the stickers in the door and jambs, so it is still orginal? Or doesn't that matter much?

sounds like a fair question to me too Tom, i was wondering the same thing actually. just a passing thought, but now you have me curious.

Good question but in this case, no they have to go. Ratty, worn, overspray from the repaint in 76... They're coming off.

I think you can peel them off with a heatgun and iirc they are clear....might be able to restick em on.