210 Wagon Progress

[MP&C]

Randy, thanks for the kind words. I like making those subtle changes that look like they belong yet have you scratching your head to figure out what was done.


Back on the quarter, Chris had started to cut out the gas door opening so it could be shaved. Large holes used in the corners to minimize the shrinking and buckle effect you see when welding in sharp corners. The cutoff wheel had got away from him (guess we need that lazer guide from Sears!) and he thought the next best thing was to cut out some more. Two more mis-cuts and we would have a three door wagon on our hands......














Still had the old door skins laying around, this seemed the perfect candidate to make the patch with. Cut it oversize, marked the hole, trimmed that oversized, trimmed some more, some slight work with the sanding disc, and Viola! A nice, tight fit.








Now I needed a nice bench to weld on, and still have access for planishing the weld dots. Good thing these paint stands were in the way, I probably wouldn't have given them thought.





Aligned as we went, dot welded, planished, ground down the weld, repeat.





Nice tight fit

















.....and we'll finish this next time.......

[carls 56]

thanks for pics and updates robert. nine work.

[Donnie]

Great pictures...unbelievable amount of great workmanship...I think I need more tools...D

[MP&C]

Thanks for the comments guys. Continuing on with the patch. Got some more weld dots in and decided to not planish for a few of them, to show the deformation that occurs. I normally will run my hand outside along the perimeter of the patch to check for any deformation. Normally you will start to see a buckle depression in between some of the welds. Here is the back side, first we'll show the full weld penetration we're looking for, then the deformed metal.











With only planishing the three weld dots adjacent to the buckle, here are the results.





This is why you need to planish as you go, to keep the panel as straight as you can. After a few more passes of weld dots, planishing, and grinding, I'll start to mark the areas left to be welded, sometimes they're hard to see in the welding helmet. Of course, maybe that's a sign of the eyes starting to go....or a dirty welding helmet.








While I was working on this quarter, Chris was tackling the other. We still had some flange to remove where someone got in a hurry in putting this thing on. We'll butt weld the seam when the flange has been removed.








Another area we plan to tackle, this is the damage from dirt that had accumlated between the pinch weld beneath the tail light.





So we plan to remove this pinch weld seam on both sides and butt weld below the tail lights to prevent a future occurance.