68 Firebird 428

Today was close to 60*f out, up from 13f two days ago. So I did some blasting on the Hood and two fenders. I did a lot of reading last night on media blasting sheet metal, especially how not to warp the low crown areas. Now that I have some time in on the paint strip disc, and blasting, I love the blasting.

On the two fender I need to do another round, all the stamped areas are good, but I was careful on the bigger flat areas but can now see I did not clean to grey evenly. It got dark out before I was done.
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The hood I stopped before it was done, as I found a bunch of rust through areas on the bracing. I’m glad I blasted it and found those. Looks like I’m gonna need to pick up a hood inner brace and replace it.
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Well it looks like there is no under hood bracing sold, only complete aftermarket hoods. A lot of manufacturers too: Goodmark, AMD, Sherman, OER, Dynacorn.

I need to research the fit to these hood
 
I think there should be some solid OE hoods around for that. That would be my first choice over aftermarket.

I’ll have to keep my eyes open, I searched Craig’s list with search tempest, and I found no 400 hoods, just a bunch of the regular hoods. (No scoops).

I blasted the doors today. I used the strip wheel to remove everything on the flat side, and the blaster on the areas it could not get.

Found some more rust through areas at the bottom rear corners of the doors, where the water must have collected.
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Welcome to the restoration world.
Rust is a common problem and you will get very good at cutting it out and welding in reproduction panels as well as fabricating patches.
Take your time and continue to be meticulous in your work and the finished product will be very rewarding.
 
Welcome to the restoration world.
Rust is a common problem and you will get very good at cutting it out and welding in reproduction panels as well as fabricating patches.
Take your time and continue to be meticulous in your work and the finished product will be very rewarding.

Thanks for the warm welcome 68...:)

I am contemplating if I should just cut out and patch the problem areas or disassemble the entire door, there must be more rust between the skin and inner panel at the bottom of the door seam. I suppose I will start by making up some patch pieces, and cut out the cancer, and if it looks bad in there i can just keep going and open up the seam till it's fixed right.

This is why I always oiled all of my doors on my vehicles. The last 6 years I have used fluid film on my daily drivers. I made up a long hose that gets the stuff way up in the nether regions on the vehicle body and chassis.
 
Have you checked out the reproduction panels? Here's a site that even has a hood as well as door skins: https://www.firebirdcentral.com/FIREBIRD_SHEET_METAL_PARTS_s/254.htm

Thanks for the link 68. Ive been on their site before, but have not ordered anything from them yet. I also have Ames Performance Engineering in New Hampshire that sells everything Pontiac. They are only and hour from me, so I'm thinking if I can get a big list together I could pick up and save on the shipping...(freight on big body panels)

Being a novice at car restoration I have to ask...Would you patch the rusted out areas, or just separate the door skin and replace with new?
 
If it's just corners, we patch them. It's not always easy to get even an OEM a door skin to fit, you have to fit the partially completed door to the quarter, rocker, and fender. Aftermarket skins can present even more difficulties. If you keep the original, the original fit is retained.
 
If it's just corners, we patch them. It's not always easy to get even an OEM a door skin to fit, you have to fit the partially completed door to the quarter, rocker, and fender. Aftermarket skins can present even more difficulties. If you keep the original, the original fit is retained.

Thanks for the insight Crash. I'm gonna dive in there this weekend and see how extensive the cancer is. If just a patch is necessary, that will be good.
Before I start that, I need to hang a Modine 200,000 btu propane heater that I ordered and received. I just heat with a large wood furnace currently, but maintaining proper temps for painting and curing would be tough this time of the year. I have to load the stove every 4-5 hours, and that only gets me to 60-65 after 8 hours when its below 32f outside. I've been putting this off for years now, but decided to get it done. I will be able to preheat the garage prior to painting so metal temps are over 70f, keep both heat sources going while the booth is exhausting to preheat the intake air, and lastly be able to set a 50-55f temp when I'm not working in there...I hate walking into a 30f shop in the morning, and that's not good for storing paint products. So lots of work this weekend, but I have Monday off too.:)
 
Ok last weekend I made up an anvil out of RR track with a couple of different radius edges to work sheet metal on. I saw this on David Gardiners dvd on Metal working.

I’m replace the 18ga sheet metal on the lower door corners where the standing water and sand rotted it out, both doors, and fenders. I’m no stranger to working with metal (blade smithing and black smithing), but thin automotive sheet metal is a new area. I’ve had success with MIG in the past, but after watching David’s dvd and the advantages of using oxy/acetylene to fusion weld, I’m sold on this way, but need to acquire the skills.

I’m sorry, I don’t know why the pic change orientation when I upload them? How do I fix this?

I started with forming the radius over the anvil.
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Then I bent the body line on the brake
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Then I test fit, back and forth from anvil to door till I have a match
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Then I scribed a line of the new patch over the repair area and cut it out just shy of the line.
The crow foot pry bar work well peeling the seam back on the area I cut out
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You can see the old bondo someone filled in the old rust hole.
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Cleaned all the surface rust up on the inner metal. I wondered if I should peel the whole skin off to get at the surface rust, but I’m gonna oil this seam after the car is painted and done, so I decided against it. The rest of the metal is solid
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I worked the edges back to the line with a bastard file To get a perfect fit.
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The last few days I have been practicing my torch welding. I only had a top rated for 1/8 and it was too powerful to control, so I bought the next size tip down and it is much better. Here’s all the practice “coupons”
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Last ones are getting much better as I get the hang of it, stretching the joint out after it cools with hammer on anvil hits, and removing all the stresses out of the metal. I got the warped coupon back to flat on the last ones. I’m still not ready to weld on my fender yet.
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View media item 102I think I’m gonna practice more on the old hood that was original to the car. I want to use the 400 hood, but the bracing is rotted in some areas, but the regular original hood has a good brace, but the skin is beat. I’m gonna remove the brace and put it in the 400 hood, and while I’m at it weld in some patches on the old hood skin for practice, I rather mess up a junk hood than my good fender, till I prove I can get consistent results.

Take care
 
Slow going, had a bunch of other work occupying my time, but I snuck in some work on the doors.

After getting all the primer and filler off I could see all the metal repairs from previous work. The front rolled edge of the drivers door was really thin in the middle, there was damage there at one point, and someone hammered on dolly to stretch the area, prob to fill the door to fender gap.

I mig’ed a 3/32 filler rod on the area and filed it to shape. I used a template of mating front fender edge to help get me close. I need to get both doors on the car, put the fenders on and work at the gaps, they are horrible on this car.

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Had some time today to separate the hood bracing from the hood skin. The bracing had pin holes after media blasting. I’m glad I took the time to take it apart. It’s all junk, I though I could swap bracing out of a good non-400 hood that I have, and install in the 400 hood. But no way, deep pitted rust on the whole front of the hood skin. I bet if I media blasted it there would be many pin holes. Time to look for a new 400 hood. 400 hoods have the two air scoops.
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I wonder if you have a dipper close by what they would charge to dip that piece?
Can't be much, then the pinholes would be an easy fix after soaked in epoxy.
Never done it, but that is a rare hood.
 
I wonder if you have a dipper close by what they would charge to dip that piece?
Can't be much, then the pinholes would be an easy fix after soaked in epoxy.
Never done it, but that is a rare hood.
They have repops of the 400 hoods, but I need to research the fit. I don’t know of any dippers in my area, but have not looked either. There are many deep pitted areas under the rust. I’ve got some homework to do
 
Ok back to work on the Firebird. The hood rust was a kick in the butt, was really hoping to not find all that deep pitted rust.

It was pointed out to me by another member MikeS on another thread, that my door skins that I was trying to weld up some patches, most likely have rust between the skin and inner frame. Well I removed one skin and sure enough, rust. I’m glad I found it now.
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I ground the edges down to remove the skin, drilled the spot welds at the top, and it came off easy. I noticed the top skin brace spot weld on one side was popped, so the brace is loose on one side

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I saw on one YouTube video, same car, the guy remove the brace and plug welded to the skin first, then installed the skin with the brace attached to the inner frame. Is that the correct way to do the job? Seems to me to just weld the brace back in place like it is part of the inner frame.

gonna pop off the passenger door skin tomorrow, make any repairs to prep for media blasting. After that looks like I will be ready for my first time using SPI epoxy primer to spray the frames.

build a little rolling cart to hold all my metal dollies, hammers, grinders, etc. was sick of going to tool box for everything. Much easier to just roll cart to the job.
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Welcome to the world of restorations. When you see a rust through spot or pitted metal it is generally the tip of the iceberg as they say.
You will be glad you are taking the time to do it right.
Nice cart!
 
It was almost 90*f hear in Massachusetts today. Got the two door frames media blasted
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I have some repair work where some welds popped. Need to order some skins tonight.

while I was at it I blasted very carefully, at an angle and kept my distance, the 400 hood that had the deep pitted rust under the bracing. To my surprise I did not blow through with the blaster, but after I pushed on the craters lightly with a punch prick, it pushed right through.
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Before I order a repop, I’m gonna mess around with this one, understanding it is a difficult panel to patch due to the low crown, but I do have the braces off and can easily get to both sides. I’ve had good results with the practice coupons and can weld and hammer out the shrinkage in the HAZ and get the coupon dead flat. However those were 18ga and the hood is 20ga. I need to get a 20ga sheet to practice on the thinner metal before I attempt any hood patches.
 
Well I’m back on the project. Spent much of last year rebuilding and restoring shop machines and such. I did some work to the 400 hood skin while at Fay Butlers shop. He and his partner Jeff Ryder helped repair the botched hood pin welds some one did. We used an ole school CP handheld pneumatic hammer and large shrinking disc. We then leaded the deep pits on the underside that the rust caused.

A friend found me a non-400 hood in good shape for $50, so I drilled out the spot welds and removed the inner bracing that I needed.

media blasted it, and planing on spraying with black epoxy this weekend
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