piecing it back together.

Okay long weekend, assistants birthday this weekend so didnt get as much time as I would like to do stuff on the Impala though i garuntee you it was more time then she liked. lol.

Anyway, The body lines on all the doors etc was way out now the panels have been stripped back, so a lottt of time was spent adjusting how the doors sit and where they latch to make all the body panels line up properly.

Also the inside of all the repairs in the doors and also sealed arround all of the edges of the doors.

Anyway 100% of the rust repairs are finished ( OH my god finally)
about 75% of sealing is finished (still have front passenger door and the inside of the bonnet to go.

Tomorow evening will throw on the front passengers door, front fenders and the bonnet and then we're 100% finished rust and sealing and FINALLY begining bodywork.

pics.


A look down the drivers side with the two doors on and lined up.











A look of the same thing, from the front.














The passengers side with the rear door on











The front door's rust repairs finished.












The front door in etch primer.














rear bonnet panel sitting in place, I need to get some new self tapping bolts for it (hopefully stainless) to hold it in place. I had to make up a aluminium cup to hold the passengers side squirter as previously it was just siliconed into position (like many other things).

A shot of the body lines of the rear of the car after lining up the boot panel

With the lights put on

An example of the sealing on the outside of the doors (see black edge) this should help prevent any future rush in the doors.

lots of pictures

Well last weekend was wasted getting called out to work due to breakdowns so this week has been spent doing the doors and the front passenger fender rust repairs (the last ones to do - yay). Anyway its 80% finished now got a bunch of pictures to throw up and i lost a bunch too because of a failure of SD card :(. Anyway thats all sorted now. this weekend ALL rust repairs should be finished and ALL the sealing should be finished (inside doors and the inside of the front fenders, the bonnet and the boot. then the car will be assembled and the bodywork will begin of which i'll throw some pictures off in due course.

Ok the pictures are back to front so bear with me. This is the rear of the front passenger door after having a new backing plate welded in and the old piece dummied up to ensure correct dimensions. (and show hideous hole)

This is the old backing plate on the same section.

The rust on the top rear of the front passengers door, while the hole looks small and probably 'bogable' the problem is the rust expands in behind the metal and causes it to stick out (quick far) making the perfect bodywork required for a black paint job, impossible. So cutting it all out and putting a little plate in after removing the rust from behind it.

The rust on the leading edge of the bottom of the passengers door front.

The rust on the rear of the passengers door front before cutting it out (see bog filling whole.)

This is the rear passengers door after having both of its rust repairs completed and being sprayed with epoxy primer. Not too many dents in this panel, nothing major.










The rust repair on the rear of the rear passengers door after repair before paint.












The rear passengers door with both repairs before sanding and painting.












The rust repair on the front left fender. There are also several dents on the top of this panel no idea how they happened.











This is SOME of what is required to finish this car, albiet the fast majority of whats required for the paint coat and 50% of the bodywork.

8l 'Super jet black' basecoat paint
8l 2k Clear coat (extra but didnt wanna run out with only 4l)
4l of BOG!
1L of Fine fill putty.
1L of 2k Spray putty
4l of 2k high build primer (gray), will probably buy another 4l depending on how bad the body lines are and how much i have to build it up and block it down to get everything lining up perfectly.

Anyway that will do for now, its been a long week and sorry for no updates (Craig has to keep reminding me as I bounce between work and the Impala and sometimes forget to do it :P). Hopefully the body will start taking shape pretty soon So I can get this tank sized car outa my 'shed' and Craig can drive arround in his fancy 'new' car.

Oops forgot to post this picture, this is where the body is at currently. Ready to be re-assembled, The roof has allready been blocked down from the original paint (which was still good quality, with no bog or rust) So there wont be too much bodywork up there.

Enough talking here's pictures.

some priming

ok well after a lot of little things here there and everywhere, cars etch primed now. just got to prime the main body of the car tomorow evening. Then weekend will be putting the car back together and finishing rust repairs on the last 3 panels (2doors 1 fender).

anyway, like i was telling craigs pictures will become fewer and far between now as im into the bodywork stage and there is a lot of little things but none worth pictureing.

Anyway here is the small stuff done and the car in etch primer / primer.

Front panels sanded back and etch primed.

Boot sanded and primed.

Rear 1/2 of the car etch primed. (you can see all the dents in the car

The drivers side, angle doesnt show you but also a LOT of dents

sanding / sealing / taping

Ok well did a lot more sanding today and some taping up hopefully the whole shell will be ready to prime and etch on about tuesday i'd guess.

Finished lining up the rear lights, they're not perfect but considering the amount of damage to the rear of the car they're as close as i can get without some major surgery.

sealed the rear windscreen and filled the holes in the boot seal lining. Going to start taping and sanding the engine bay tomorow evening and taping it up so that can get primed at the same time.

pics.






Rear window sealed. all of the trim clips are rusted to oblivian so i'll have to re-silicone the trim down when its all finished. But i'll just do a shitload neater job then whoever did it last time. (smeared everywhere.)

Rear quarters are sanded ready to be etch primed.

Roof all sanded in and ready to prime. Door holes are taped up ready to prime that area aswell.

sanding and filling.

Ok well I didnt bother taknig many photo's today and from this stage on photo's will become less common because its a lot of small stuff over large area's that really arnt worth a picture each.

Anyway. First thing this morning found some rust on the front window. some BIG holes - yay.

Filled the holes in the rear window sill today with the metal fill and treated the rust on the rear boot seal lip with rust converter and tomorow i'll re-wire brush before filling those holes with metal fill aswell.

Assistant spent the day removing the last of the thick paint from the rear quarters, and I also sanded the pain in arround the front and rear windows.

At this stage im hoping to get the bare metal part of the shell in etch primer and then continue preping the rest of the shell and engine bay and boot to get into normal primer before re-assembling the car and doing the major bog work and then doing thick coats over the whole thing of primer/filler before guide coating it and leaving it for 2 weeks to 'set' (going to enjoy that 2 weeks off :P)

Also some really dodge crap on the rear right window (no picture supplied) basicly they hammered down the side of the window support metal / roof beam and put a ton of bog in there to hide the rust holes on that side. Took me a bit of time to fix that up aswell while i was addressing the pre-existing holes.

Pics and then im off to relax for a bit.

Rear window passengers side bottom holes fixed. yet to be sanded / shaped.

Same story, front another angle.

Rust on the top passengers of the front windscreen.

more schultz

Ok i schultzed all of the inside of the rear quarters today. Ill have a lot more to write up tomorow, i also removed the trim above the passengers doors in preperation for the weekend. No rust so all good on that front too.

here's some pictures and hopefully some sweet progress pics of the car body in etch primer / primer this weekend.

Sealed!

Ok spent yesterday and today sealing the boot install into the impala from the bottom and the top. all that is left is too schultz the inside of the rear quarters now then she'll be ready to sand, prime and paint! (finally).

Still on target to get the body in etch this weekend hopefully I have a chance to do the trunk seal and rear window seal tomorow night.

Anyway im tired blah blah blah picture time.

Right side of the bottom of the trunk sealed!

Middle of the trunk floor Sealed!

Passengers side of the trunk floor sealed.

The black on the gray is the seam sealer moulded over the welds and joins in all the panels to seal and hopefully make the install appear seamless when its painted for a better finished job. When its primed this weekend (hopefully) we should be able to get an idea of what it'll look like when painted. (certainally a lot better then the old one.

Which incase you forgot. was somewhat like this.

day 11

Well I removed the fender and both doors on the passenger side today and stripped them down. Some of the bolts are so old / rusted and seized they sheared.. great. went out and brought a tap and some STAINLESS STEEL BOLTS so we wont have that problem again...

Also brought a special paint coat for the fuel tank, and some new hoses and clamps. And also some more sanding crap so my assistant can continue sanding the removed panels.

I welded the new plates over the holes in the boot and sealed those, also sealed the 2 removable plugs into the left and right fender and cleaned all the bottom of the boot panels and began seam sealing hte outside of those (but ran out of seam sealer lol)

So now I have to buy some more seam sealer to finish that tomorw night then i'll 3m schultz the bottom and all other outside area's. before moving into the inside of the boot and finishing all of that off. Then I can begin to work on the rear window sill and the trunk sill before re-assembling the rear and trying to fix the alignment of the rear bar and lights.

At this time we are HOPING to get the body in etch primer by the end of the weekend coming.

The two plugs are sealed into the floor pan of the boot.

showing rust on both bottom corners of the rear door, Also there is rust on both bottom corners of the front door and also on the top trailing corner.

Rust on the fender.

Looking more and more like a shell thats ready to be etch primed!

The metal patch's welded in and sealed over the top.

Day 10

Starting to run out of days but good progress is being made.

My assistant sanded the roof today all looks good there, since there was no flaws in the roofs paint bar a bad finish, we've only sanded too the high build primer which is still in good condition. we're blending the levels on the pilars. Only the leading edge which has holes in the metal to be filled needs to actually be cut back but this will be dont later when the front window trim has been removed.

The boot will be finished early tomorow morning and then ill fully seal it before cleaning and treating the rear window seal and trunk seal area's.

Anyway dinners ready and its been a 12 hour day almost so im going 2 eat. here's pictures.

Roof sanded

Passengers side of trunk finished.

Centre piece trimmed and pop rivited in after holes for 'spot welds' have been drilled.

Ta da. finished all bar grinding the welds down and putting metal patches over.... (see next picture)

The holes... which were just full of glue but I decided since i had the offcuts i'd properly seal with metal.

Day 9

Okay so 10 hours on it today but slow progress because the left piece which i spent the majority of the day working on needed to be 'reshaped' a lot to make it a good fit (unlike the right side which was very nice).

Anyway got about 1/2 or more of the spot welds finished on the left side so i'll finish that tomorow and hopefully manage to finish fitting the centre piece, thereby FINISHING the new trunk floor install. Then ill seal everything in the back end and address the alignment of the rear lights on the passenger side while my assisnt sands the roof and other area's ready to etch prime the 'body' probably this weekend coming!!! then its basicly BODYWORK TIME! !! !!!

OK finished welding up all the spot welds, then seam welded the leading and trailing edge

Sanded down the spot welds and the leading and trailing edge.

After cleaning up this area and washing it with wax and grease remover, then coated this with etch primer.

Marks made and holes drilled for spot welds, mannny adjustments made to get it to sit correctly and seal well when 'rivited' into place.

Here is the left side with most of the spot welds finished and some of the trailing edge welded on in sections.