The trunk lid proved to be problem in it's own right. The 4 door car and the 2 door car have different trunk lids and trunk floors. The 2 door car trunk lid and floor being about 3 inches longer overall. Both trunk lids looked to be in good condition so when it came time to sandblast the 2 door lid was the only choice.
After sandblasting things weren't quite so good. The trunk lid is composed of basically 2 major components. The outer formed skin and the inner stamped "skeleton" or reinforcing frame.
One section of the frame and larger sections of the outer skin were found to have extensive elongated rust holes. Of note, they were all in the lower portions of the trunk lid where moisture would be most likely to collect and in "channeled" areas.
As previous described, the preferred operations are prime the cleaned rust free metal, then make the repairs. The skin area to be removed required carefully shallow cutting of the skin while not cutting the underlying frame. The skin is wrapped around the edge of the frame. The small lip had to be notched to allow removal. Then it had to be carefully bent up to unwrap and remove it from the frame. All the exposed metal then had to be straightened as necessary, treated and primed.
This reconstruction was further complicated by the fact that the skin is wrapped around the edges of frame. This meant the repairs had to match outer curves and be bent a full 180 degrees back over the frame and sealed. The wrap bend also had to have clearance for the thickness of the frame. The folded wrap had to be carefully laid out and pre-punched for spot welds before it could be bent. The length of the outer skin patch necessitated fabricating three (3) patches, bending and butt welding (end to end) them together. Three pieces were required as the trunk lid is not a straight line, but rather a gentle curve. This was due to limited bending brake size and the inability to form curves. The piece then had to be hand hammered flat and using angle iron clamped into place to completely flatten the wrap; then spot welded moving the angle iron and clamps to assure everything stayed flat on the back (inside lip) of the trunk lid. Three pictures follow showing patches and welding.
After the work was completed, the trunk lid was reinstalled to allow secure outside storage. Not shown is additional work that had to be performed around the right hand curved lower section of the skin and lip which blistered and opened up a year later.
No comments:
Post a Comment