My 70 Dart

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The welder is the Easy Mig-100 from Harbor Freight. The only heat adjustment is high or low. I can control the wire speed, but thats it. And .30 flux core wire. Clean well before paint. Done that with the primer and good adhesion. I am going to try holding the tip closer to the metal tonight. I have gotten a few welds that are perfect looking. Flat on top, no splatters or burn through, and very round with a little metal underneath. And yes, I am tacking only, this thing can not lay a bead for long, about 1 to 2 minutes before you have to stop for something like 8 minutes. Made to tack only. The metal I'm practicing with is 20 gauge, I hope that is the same as the car. It seems to be real close. The welder owner worked at American motors, retired from there, as a welder. He is the one who says to hold it closer. Plus I know I have to space the tacks out, at least one inch, to prevent warping. I DO NOT need to rush this! A few tacks then let it cool off. Then tack some more. More later. Thanks!
 
Wire brush the slag off after a few tacks it will make connecting the "dots" easier.
 
Ok, installed a piece today. Not a lot of tacks, but the car moves when I push/pull on the piece. Forgot to take pics before I welded it in, but have pic after. Will post tomorrow. Will grind it tomorrow, then fill gaps with J-B Weld. Then grind again. Feel pretty good right now. Took a piece in to work to put the bend in it. Thought I had the anchor point at the bottom wide enough. Well, I was off by about 1/4 inch.:banghead: Well, I found another way to get the nice bend in w/o a vise. :cheers: After slacking off for a week or two, making some half-way decent progress. Thanks!
 
Ok, heres a pic of what I did yesterday. Fiiled gaps with JB Weld today after grinding. Here in the midwest by Lake Michigan it is HOT!!!!! And humid. Put some more body filler in by the rear wheel well. Have trunk inside and the fender extensions I can work on INSIDE. Thanks.

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you are doing a great job, but instead of butt welding you should get a lip former tool from eastwood, that way your metal will fit into a groove making the seams alot nicer to weld, my 2 cents worth,
 
Thought about that also, a panel flange tool from harbor freight, eastwood on e-bay has the wide jaw hand-held. I only have the two pieces to do, it didn't seem to make sense, plus the welding got better. Starting to get cheap. Don't think I will do another project, no good place to either do the work or store the car when finished. What am I gonna do with all the tools I'm buying when done? I'll either take them to my brother or my nephew in Colorado, or do a easy cheap sale to someone here. Anyway, ain't tearing anything up, just fixing it! Progress. Forgot, the welds don't look pretty, but I can shake the car by pushing/pulling on the piece I just put in w/o the J-B Weld. So real happy with that. Thanks!

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Not much to add lately. Little work here and there. I have made some progress. Now for the holiday weekend. I have two things I really want to do. One is to finish up the rear quarter panel. Fab a piece and weld and then filler. Well, at least fab and weld it in........ Trunk, I want to prime, filler, scratch coat, block, if block is good, then basic blue, then the aluminum blue. Will hold off on the clear coat for now. I did rattle can the front tho. The black wiped off with MEK. Then 100 grit paper took the blue away too easy. Blue was a very, very light coat. No problem, just made it easier for me. Oh well, I am going forward! I'm beginning to think I need to go a LOT lighter on the body filler. Thanks for looking and enjoy.

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Got somewhere today. The rear is all closed up. Where the holes from the cut out that is. Didn't look too good yesterday. Broke the welds on the piece on the extension piece yesterday. But today.............happy again! I had to use pop rivets and another piece of steel to hold the patch in, but it ain't going to no car shows this year anyway. The outside (q-panel patch) came out real nice. Don't have pics tonight, will do that tomorrow. Also sprayed surfacer on the trunk lid (2 coats) Then sprayed some rust-oleum enamel on top for scratch coat. Not sure if I let the black fully cure because it clogged my paper and clumped up on the trunk. Why did that happen? My only guess is I didn't let it fully cure because I came back about 2 hours later and used 180 grit paper and while it still clogged up, it was no where near as bad. I was able to see I had a LOT of low areas to build up still. LOL, damn hail. Now I know what I have to look forward to on the hood at least! Hope you like my high tech paint booth! Thanks and enjoy. Just two new pics from Monday itself. Gonna take it easy rest of the day.

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Every once in a while I have to look at this. It does not show as well as I would like as a picture, but you get the idea. This is what all the time and work and effort is for. At least that is what I keep telling myself! LOL. For not knowing a damn thing about body work, I think I'm doing ok so far. Only have had the car a little over two months and so far I have taken the paint off, and fixed a rust hole, actually TWO holes! I'm getting there, slowly but surely. I need to have more patience. I would like to drive this thing. Back to the paint, I work in the R&D lab for a paint company and get to practice, but on 9inx12in size panels. I go in early sometimes lately and practice on 2ft x 2ft panels. I will only get one shot at this paint, so I have to get it right. If I don't.........mono color it is.Thanks for listening. :toothy10:

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Well, I was going to bring my spray gun home from work and spray some more surfacer on the trunk to block it. I had to spray some special effect glass beads and the fan on my gun was screwed up. No wonder I got real bad tiger striping when I sprayed something else earlier today! So I went in and took the flat black and the dupli-color blue pearl off the q-panel I patched up. I wanted to see if I did ok with it. Other than needing to sand it down some more,(top edge) I am REAL happy with the patch. The top of the filler (bondo), needs to be smoothed down some more, thats why I got the marks on the paint I put on there.
I used a 1.4mm SATA gun that I borrowed from a co-worker. WOW! That is nice! Made me spray ok. We get them for half-price at work. Half price for us is $300. LOL, half price. Can't see spending that much money on something I will only use this time on this car. Besides, I can borrow it. Hehehe. Ok, thanks and enjoy. BTW, don't be afraid to comment. Criticism will be read. Thanks again.

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Ok, ambitious weekend planned. I would like to get the whole car primed this weekend. Well, all but the dented area. Gotta keep the rust off of it. Ospho works only so long. I have the fender extensions primed, fixed the gouge in one of them, don't know how it got in there. Also had some primer mixed so the front passenger front fender is primed. I'm gonna leave the doors and hood on for paint, I just don't have the room to take them off to work on them. I can get a touch-up gun for the close-in work. I'll have to figure out a way to do it. Gonna go out later and finish taking apart the panel for the passenger side rear. Already took the handle and lock off that side. Since it is a '70, it has the holes for the side trim. I want to eliminate the trim altogether. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this, plug the clip holes? My '71 I just peeled the trim off. When I get more done, I'll post pic's. Thanks!
 
How do I fill in the holes for the trim? Do I use body filler? What? Thanks.
 
Did you use flux core weld for the sheet metal? I was thinking of doing the same with the minitub on my dart, I am using 16 ga for that.
Also to fill the trim holes, if you put copper behind the holes, you can fill the holes with weld and it does not stick to the copper. Then grind, filler and paint.
 
Looks like a good start. I just started welding myself. The more you do it, the more comfortable and the better you'll get at it. I bought a flange tool before I started and it was one of greatest investments I made. It makes the welding so much easier and it does make a much better weld. Keep us posted and more pics.
 
Slow going, I'm getting things done. Just not looking like I'm doing a lot. A few pics. I have the dent on the drivers side that I thought about using bondo to mold to the shape...........well that did not work. Ended up trying to hammer out the bondo. Yeah right. Stuff was hanging on there for dear life. Had to sand it out. Going to slide hammer the dent out and use as little bondo as I have to. Got a contour gauge to help me. Getting the hang of the blocking. Seems I was working it wayyyyto much. Finding out just a little bit of work is what you need. Real progress once I found that out. Reminds me of this saying I ran across once. "Think, there has to be a harder way of doing this!" So true. The one pic of the window channel looks worse than it really is. The rust is surface rust. Whenever I see that, I keep telling myself I got real lucky with this car. Thanks for looking!

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DOH!!!!!!! Sometimes I amaze myself. Here I've been trying to block the trunk on my car for practice. Well, did I mention I also work in the R&D lab for a paint company? I have sprayed a lot of different types of coatings. Surfacer for one. Here is where the DOH! comes in. I'm wondering why I have yet to build up the film on the trunk. This is the third coat I have to spray. Well, the gun I'm using has a 1.4 tip. LOL :banghead: I'm trying to build up a film? *sigh* That size is for topcoats and clearcoats. I will bring home the 2.2mm tip gun tomorrow. And NOT be afraid to mix up a good amount of surfacer. I'll git 'er done sooner or later!
 
Bummer, smashed my finger at work today and I needed three stitches. My finger with the wrap looks as thick as a white bratwurst, (I live in wi). So how am I gonna put more surfacer on the trunk tonight? The weather is BEAUTIFUL! I'll find a way! Might pay later, but I'm gonna suffer either way. Might as well accomplish something. Thanks.
 
Saturday, learning how to do blocking better after trial and error on the trunk. I will spray surfacer on the trunk tomorrow and sand it, it should come out ok now. I also bondo'd the hail dents in the hood, as much as I could tell anyway. I sprayed primer on it same time as trunk. I can see where I need to fill it in, not as much work as on trunk. See, I DID learn something! I bondo'd and then did guide coat then sanded and more filler. Man, that hood is WHACKED bad! Almost worth to buy another one, but how do I know that one would be ok? What the hey.......ain't doing nothing today anyway. I found out also that my compressor is not good enough for the Devilbiss gun I'm using. That thing needs too much CFM than the compressor has to put out. Will have to use a different gun. Will have pictures when primer is dried. Also thinking about going to a different paint. Was gonna use an aluminum flake blue, but that is way to touchy for my skill level. Going to try a xirallic pigment in a clear. That stuff does not settle, stays suspended. Could it be that the aluminum is settling in the cup while I'm spraying? One thing is sure, I'm staying with the blue color of the car. That will stay original. Don't have time or money to change to what I would like. Ok, all for now. Thanks for looking!
 
Ok, here are two pics from the weekend work so far. The trunk will get surfacer tomorrow and I will guide coat and sand.......should be good to go. The hood, I can see where I need more filler, so at least I know that. Do it twice or more, at least get it done! Thanks again for looking. Oh, almost forgot. Strange how that filler just sucks up the primer........ hope that won't cause a problem later on.

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As for the holes in the side try this Car Crafts web and look up tech and then find how to fill holes. its from 2009 its even on a 70 swinger.
 
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