So it begins - TOMORROW

Curious,what part of the country did the replacement wagon come from?Please dont say virginia,all this hidden rust is scaring me!

florida from what I remember

1993 Roady-man wrote:

florida from what I remember

I think i saw that gold caprice wagon sitting in orangeville at a place called top tech,. was a nice clean car,..

Its not the same car Nick, the one Jarrod is parting was hit real bad in the front end...sadly it was beyond salvage. Real shame too as I think it only had 60K miles on it.

Are you saving the White RMW or will it be offering up parts to save others?

Big Wagon Guy wrote:

Its not the same car Nick, the one Jarrod is parting was hit real bad in the front end...sadly it was beyond salvage. Real shame too as I think it only had 60K miles on it.

Are you saving the White RMW or will it be offering up parts to save others?

The white car can be used for parts if folks need stuff,.it will be blue interior parts tho,.

The gold car was originally from Florida. Fred bought it, and sold it to a guy named Paul in the Rochester, NY area. He drove it through 2 or 3 winters, or so he said. It was a nice low mileage car when his daughter put an end to it.

Well with what little work I did get done I managed to get the rear quarter section off,.. so now he has one good patch panel for one of his other cars. Anyway this seam sealer they used on this car is unbelievably hard. Tried using a hammer and chisel and the ended up using a drill with a wire wheel on it... That was time consuming. Needed to clean it off so there is no fires when I weld it back on.

Looks like a car again, I will be welding this back on tomorrow.









Oh and here is what the back side of his solid quarter looks like:

This is interesting to watch....

Yes it is, especially close up. You gotta have patients though. Lot's of little things I run into while doing this type of work.

Really nice work! Keep the pics coming!

-Mike

Lookin' good Jerrod. Can't wait to se it done.

Ok well things didn't go as planned but hey that's life. Realize one thing for sure....... I do take pride in what I do.

Ok so I cleaned up the wagon for installation of the quarter but ran into a few hiccups.

here is an up close look at the qtr:







Here is what it looks like after being sandblasted:





But look what I found here:



Pinholes:



Cleaning up the scraps:

More random pix's of progress:





Also messed with hood today this hood has or had 6 layers of primer on it sadly 3 lacquer and 3 2k which is a no no. The more I messed with it the more I found air pockets hidden just below the surface.



Should have took a picture before I sanded this area it was bad the primer had literally bridged itself across a gap that would have only shrunk later to reveal crevices



In this picture you can see the lifting effect of the lacquer under the 2k primer



Put some etch primer on the sandblasted areas then applied some undercoating to protect it. He shouldn't ever have rust issues on this rear quarter ever again.

Here is what it looks like when I left tonight... it's ready to be installed once I repair the few minor holes I created today. But coming along nicely. Wish I had 4 more hands like mine to help me. My precious customers keep stopping by and it makes things progress slowly.



I also pulled front door off and sanded the jambs on it as well

This thread is so awesome....I wish I could ditch my woodgrain and have you do a full WB4 conversion on mine. It's obvious you really take pride in what you do...and you do it well.

Chris

REALLY nice work!!

Impressive work. It's really coming along. And your skills certainly shine.

Ok so I decided to work on the door John brought,..... and guess what,... I got a few surprises.











Ok this part of the door was covered in body fill and I was wondering why...............



So I figured something lurked behind this



Sure enough we had a nice dent that the previous body guy tried to straighten from the inside.

Also decided to fix the rusted area behind the driver side quarter glass....

I cut the rusted piece off...



Made a template from old piece



Prepped it and primed it

Ok here's a bunch of the other little things I did today.

Seam sealer on certain parts.









Tail light fits nice (test fit) but quarter still not welded yet. I added some undercoat to it and I want it to be completely dry before welding it on.







Also door after dent is pulled





Door is ready for fill for tomorrow




Not a lot of progress but a lot of little things done. Keep moving forward is all I can do.

Today was repair quarter before installing,.. and weld quarter on. Woo Hoo so glad that part of the job is upon me. All downhill from here on out. Should get easier.

Cut out bad area and made patch







I like to put fiberglass over welded areas to protect it even more.

That wagon wont be rusting anymore after you are done with it.Takes a huge amount of patience to do this kind of work and yours shows!

Yes at least this side won't be rotting anytime in this lifetime.

I set quarter glass in,... to make it feel like I did more than what I did. LOL   
And look at that door to quarter fit.

Oh I also figured out how to widen these cars if I ever had too. Did a lot of measuring and figuring while this was apart. Could stick some really good size meats under it if I ever do it.

Has anyone ever looked into getting rear glass cut so as to eliminate the wing windows completely?
It seems to me that getting rid of these little used things would help with the leaking issues as well as the wind noises that are always a problem?

Great work sir!!

Jim , we need that rear window!!

Jarrod thank you very much for posting the progress pictures and for treating the car as if it was your own. I'm looking forward to seeing it in person.

Any idea what GM called that paint color?

1993 Roady-man wrote:

Mark I've been painting cars 32 years. Basically a hobby that turned into a business.

New members are not allowed to post external links or emails for 7 days

*sigh* - So, here imagine the two pics off the first page of the rubber treatment on the rear rounded-corner pieces. Then read my post below.

S  M   O   O  O   T  H  !   !   !

After removing the perimeter trim, THIS or something like it is what I really need. How long will that bare rubber stand the weather until I could get it painted?

I would say quit awhile, once it is set it's set, BUT when it comes time to paint I would sand and put a fresh layer of the repair material on again.

Ok so do you remember this pix of the inside of the door. Well it's where somebody tried to straighten the outside with a hammer pick. well it came back to bite me.



I started sanding the door down and kept getting a high spot so I decided to dig deep this time. Well it turns out the more I pounded back and ground it down I put 2 holes in it. So I cut it out and hammered and dollied the interior of the door so it would not be an issue later.













I also needed to start cleaning up the greasy door hinges and sand those for paint,....what a mess and tedious job, but I will be painting this jamb today pix's will be posted later.





On a side note I love my customers but they sure can slow things down. Had one stop by and he talked to me for about an hour and as he was leaving he turns around and says "you'll never make any money working by yourself because you'll never get anything done" and "look how much I just wasted of yours" I laughed and said thanks

You do some very impressive work Jarrod,takes a long time to learn how to do that kind of metalwork.Going to be a beautiful wagon when youre done and all that hard work will be invisible to everyone but us since we saw the before pics.

Thanks Jim, I do love what I do. Ok here's the painted jamb

My OCC is next!

Its amazing to watch the transformation as well as the 'discovery' of what lies beneath the paint and bodywork.
This is going to be pristine when all is done.

Yes it will. If you noticed the bolt heads are black, I was going to just paint right over them but figured I'd paint them black and then cover them up because they were black before I started. I painted the strikers too and cleaned up the rubber boots for the wires so it will be really clean once it's all back together. Attention to detail.

I see you use one of my favorite tricks for painting weird shaped stuff-aluminum foil! When I did the color change on my 95 Mustang GT conv from white to black I used foil for lots of the underhood stuff that paper would have never stayed attached to. The wagon looks great. I'm sure you are anxious to see it done.

Very anxious indeed, and the owner is too.

Wish I could find half the body repairman you are - around here most Body shops don't want any jobs that are not gonna fill there pocketses with insurance money.

LOL that's me in the winter time. Especially since the heating bills rise that time of the year. I only can do project cars during the summer. Sad but true. No such thing as winter projects, only insurance work in the winter.

1993 Roady-man wrote:

LOL that's me in the winter time. Especially since the heating bills rise that time of the year. I only can do project cars during the summer. Sad but true. No such thing as winter projects, only insurance work in the winter.

Why am I not surprised!! ha ha. We all gotta make a livin.

What I need body-work wise is pretty basic, remove a few dings and paint the Whale - Diamond White, well maybe
DW I havent made up my mind....actually I might Paint it Black.

Wow, that's just amazing work you've done!

I'd love to book my wagon in for that (got quarter panel rot, spare tire carrier, a fairly deep scratch on one door) kind of treatment, but right now I have to be very careful with my money.

I haven't even managed to get the new shocks put on mine, and I've had them for almost as long as I've had the car!

1993 Roady-man wrote:

PS John told me if I don't get it done in time for WF he is fine with that but I'm going to do my best to make sure this baby shows up.

Hah! John may be fine with that, but I'm not.... And I bet I'm not alone. Get this done for WF man.

This is the best thread in a LONG time Jerrod, great work.

Today started out great,.... then it happened. First my camera quit so I have to go buy a new one. Then I put the tailgate outside to get it out of the way,... so I propped it up against the building. Then later I heard this crunching sound, yup a customer pulled in an backed their car right up into the gate. I felt like I got kicked in the stomach. This was at 1 and after the lady left I went back to work on gate. Thank god I was able to keep my cool but she could tell I was mad. I sat down and did some breathing exercises to help pass the time.

Talk about 1 step forward 2 steps back. Seriously I guess I was suppose to rework the gate anyway LOL! Very little progress today. No pix's of damage.

Those breathing exercises are great for keeping a straight head and maintaining your blood pressure.
Feels good to not blow up over the small things dont it?

Good Lord. Just read this.

I'm proud of you for not killing anyone...

WOW.

Man...hang in there. That jamb color looks wicked!

women,.. can't live with them,.. can't shoot 'em,..