need help

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if anyone could post where are the best places to get new frame rails and new metal for floor pans and stuff like that? it would be much appreciated
 
Yep, bought a go-wing from Dante a few years ago. Good product.

Jerry
 
yea im just going around looking for places that are selling reproduction sheet metal and as i find them i will post them to see wether they are good or not
 
Check these guys out. I do not have first-hand knowledge of them , but I've heard good things. Note that they have "OE Style" Quarters, which means they are seamed in the C-pillar. That makes a LOT smaller area that you have to straighten out after welding.

If you go this route, watch out for the factory lead filler. That stuff is no good for you. Don't sand it!
 
well my dad just bought a welder its a hobart handler 187 its a 220 volt also we got a mask and some .024 welding wire but they were out of bottles for argon so we will be going back later. so it looks like i will be practicing for a while then seeing how that turns out and then on to the floor pans.
 
When you weld thin gauge sheet metal, don't run a continuous bead like you would in heavier metal. Make short little "stitches" far apart from each other - one here...one there, etc. - until you close every gap. Running a bead can develop excessive heat and cause warping.

Practice make perfect,
Jerry
 
yea ive been reading up on how to weld and thats looking like the only right way to do it that i could ever accomplish and reading up will only help to a certain point from there on its wether i can put that book knowledge into practical skill and right now i have absolutely no welding skill at all so i will be practicing for a long winter before trying to weld a structural part of a car frame lol. thats not really important any way who needs structural rigidity :toothy10:
 
now that i have a welder how would i go about bracing the car so that we can cut out the bad spots and not have the car fold into a pretzel? im pretty sure right now that the car is not true and needs to be tweaked cause it looks like the pans have been messed with and ther door lines do not match up and i dont know wether they braced the car when they did this. so any way that i can tell wether the car is true or not and then where to brace to get it to where it needs to be. and to brace it should we weld bars into the car or can we do it with jack stands and stuff like that? any help is appreciated.
 
Take a look up towards the top of this thread and you will see how severely my son and I cut up the back end of his Dart Sport to do a lot of what you are considering doing. His was eaten up pretty badly with rust, and it seemed a lot easier and more efficient to do it that way instead of a bunch of little patches and fabrications to remove the rot. Keep this in mind, that was the first time ever that either of us had done body work.

It may look like a daunting task, but once we had a plan in mind and got started on the surgery, it really wasn't that bad. All I can say is measure, measure, measure some more, then measure again, before you cut anything.

Remember, these cars were built with unibody construction - the body skin is welded to the framework - unlike other vehicles that have bodies you can lift off the frame independently. For the most part, it is self-supporting, and you would have to do some serious metal removal in large chunks to leave enough voids to allow the movement you are concerned with.

The two frame rails sticking out the back of the Dart in that one picture shows you how much can be removed and still have good support. Yes, the rails did have some flex in them, but a few self-tapping sheet metal screws were all it took to hold them in place for welding the replacement trunk back on. We grafted the back end of a '76 Duster onto the '74 Dart Sport, and I was amazed how well the drilled out spot welds from each vehicle lined up precisely onto the other. That helped a lot in getting everything located back in the right spot. Of course, if you use new replacement sheet metal, you won't have the advantage of the spot welds.

The best advice I can give you is to map out a solid plan on what you want to fix and how you can propose to do it. Think out every step in detail, use felt tip markers to sketch out the cuts, check for obstructions underneath, make sure cuts are made in good solid metal to remove all the cancerous rust, and focus on one area at a time.

See, that doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Jerry
 
no not at all its just the fact that i think that it was done wrong before we got the car so i will measure alot before we cut at anything just to make sure
 
me and my dad are gonna go out and get 100 pounds of scrap metal and practice soon just to get the hang of what we need to do
 
Good luck on your developing welding skills and remember that mig welder doesn't like to weld on rust. When you get to the frame rails make sure you grind them clean. If you have heat build up problems with argon try 90/10 mix argon/co2 it will weld a little cooler for filling any gaps.
 
I have also done everything to my car (and more) that you are about to do so pm me if ya need any help,,,,,by the way,,,nice welder choice. Ive used 4 bottles of gas and 4 large rolls of 035 wire on mine but im done,,,I hope. Good luck and remember when ya get a little upset about the work left to do,,,walk away for a week,,,,the break will help lots lol.
 
yea we just got it out of the box and are going to try soon and we'll see how bad we really are. lol
 
hopefully this weekend i can get out and sand down the bondo and primer off of the quarters to see how bad they are and probably going to get the floor pans and anything else that needs to be sanded in there too. i will get more pics once i get started on it. i was looking at the rear right quarter and i saw a white piece of painted metal so im thinking the briliant person who did the work put a skin over the old metal. and that it only needs a bottom patch. a person can dream cant they lol lets hope so
 
yea this is why now we are debating whether we should just sell the car for parts cause it is looking like more and more like a money pit. my dad gave me the decision whether to keep going with it or just sell it for parts and look for a more suitable platform to work from. how much would everyone here think i could get for the car if i parted it out? here is what we can find out by the build sheet its now a 360 car not 318

original 318 2 bbl,original torqueflite 904trans, original 8 1/4 rear, one tire fryer with 2.45:1 rear gears, original big bolt pattern brakes,d78x14 WSW ???? 14'' white wall?,Y97gasoline 3 gallons?? mono tone paint,bench seat,carpeting,10x2.5" rear drum brakes,Front disc brakes some years power,tinted glass all,50 amp alt,46 a/h battery,3spd variable wipers,inside hood release,music master radio am,coolant recover system,Noise reduce pkg.,stan.1" frt. shocks,Rear shock. absorber later,power steering, that is what we can get so far there are some codes missing from this list cause the decoder didnt have them so if anyone has a good decoder could you post it thank you.


the pieces that are on the ground fell off when i sanded the tops off of the pop rivets holding it on through the bondo. we paid 800-900 dollars for the car dont know why but do you think there is anyway to get that back out of the car as it sits or parted out?

right side no patch.jpg


right sill.jpg


right quarte pannel.jpg


patch right quarter pannel.jpg
 
you would most likely get 250 for the kmember/ front brakes, 100 for the rear end - recheck the ratio, 100 motor maybe. 50 tranny maybe. and maybe 250 for all the glass if it is good. 100 for interior parts if they are decent. Maybe 200 for all the other little things. You would have to work hard to get everything sold and do a lot of pulling.
 
my uncle has a 71 or 72 demon and he stripped his car completely to race it and then threw everything away. so he needs alot of parts that i have that he needs to get his car back on the street and hes been asking when im done whith the car he'll buy it and use it for parts more than likely. and i think he said he will pay what we paid for it so we will not lose on the deal. the sad thing is if i do get rid of the car i might end up with a chevy or a pontiac if i can find one that i can afford and in reasonable shape. but they are a lot cheaper to build than a mopar hence the reason to go that way.
 
ive seen a 4 door valiant and a mid 60's gto but i dont know whether either of them are for sale or worth it to buy. i also dont know the condition of them either havent looked up close at either of them.
 
trust me stick with the mopar. no matter what you buy it will need work and you already started on this one.
 
well the thing is the hole back half of the car need to be replaced. now the left and right sills. the front floor pans. and when i was sanding the car i went to start it and now it does not start. it has run before and the last time that it was running it just shut off instanly after running for 2-3 minutes. not like running out of gas sputtering it just stopped dead.and i only have 450 dollars right now to put into it. and soon im gonna have to use my money for insurance and all that stuff so its budget will be cut to almost 0. i just dont know what to do with it anymore.
 
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