rusty roof tear off
I understand there are 200 spot welds!
I don't think there was 200 spot welds. Maybe half that? Still a lot, but you can remove the skin in a few hours if you know what you're doing. I took longer than that with the first one, but I bet the next one I do will be twice as fast as the last one.
I can go count if you want, roof skin's out in the shop...:D
I also understand you can melt out the lead with a plumber's torch. This true?
Yup. Lead melts at 621.5* F, easily attainable with a propane torch. Not a whole lot of lead in the quarter seams either, its pretty easy.
Out of curiosity- what would be the disadvantage of culling the roof a couple inches inside the drip rails and just butt welding the new section in (assuming most of your rust issues were not directly in the drip rail area)?
Disadvantage to cutting and butt welding is that you'll have a lot of cutting to do, the entire length vs just drilling out the spot welds. Then, you'll have to weld that entire distance instead of just replacing the spot welds. More welding= more heat, more heat= more warping.
thanks guys. It seems to me that the roof on my car has all the support inside and that my top is only a skin does that sound right? Nice rides 72
Yup, that's right. Nice thing about just taking the skin is that the car remains structurally sound, nothing is going to move if you just take the roof skin off.
And thanks!
First off - I am no body man and have never tackeled a job like this but I have to ask for my own curiosity?? Would it not be easier to just cut off the entire roofs at the front and rear posts and weld the new one on intact?
Not really. The pillars have multiple layers, so you won't be able to reweld the center layers. That means a weaker roof. Plus, you'll have to brace the body, because if you remove the entire structure you make the body much weaker. If it moves, you'll have a heck of a time getting the roof back on straight.
Hot rodder's get away with this because the earlier cars only had single layer pillars, so, you're not losing any strength by chopping the pillars. Once you get past the late 60's, the pillars have multiple layers. Plus, the older cars had full frames, so, they didn't rely on the strength of the roof as much as the unibody style cars.
There are multiple layers of material in the window channels. Easier to keep things aligned if you only remove one of those layers vs. getting the whole roof realigned cutting the A and C pillars.
Exactly. No way to weld those inner layers easily once they're cut. And if you don't you've seriously weakened the integrity of the roof.