ZZ3Astro

First of all, this isn't my car. Second, I've never replaced a single piece of sheet metal on a car. Another member of Thirdgen came to me for help with replacing his ttop seals since I had already done that with mine. When he got the old seals off, he found a major problem...






So I started cutting the rusted areas out, without a real firm idea of what lay ahead in trying to replace them!


This was the worst area.. the entire seal channel was ruined here too


Front section wasn't spared either


All rusted areas now cut out. First piece spot welded in place was the only Z bend piece. It sits lower than I wanted but was a pretty difficult piece to make. I figured it was best to get the most difficult piece done first.

ZZ3Astro

The new pieces were cut from a second gen deck lid. I used a vice and a body hammer to bend them into shape. An air grinder and bench grinder was used to trim the pieces to shape. The new pieces kept falling into the holes, so I spotted a tab on each one which also helped in positioning for tacking.




I stitch welded each piece in. I started with my TIG but blew too many holes. The MIG works better with its constant feed of new filler material. Still blew a few holes which are always a pain to fill back up. Afterwards the welds are ground flat and filled again as needed.



Grinding!! Lots of it to get the welds flat.

ZZ3Astro

Next up, the seal channels were in bad shape in several areas, and completely missing in front of that biggest cut-out area. I made new "J" channel using 22 gauge steel sheeting. I heated it up with a blow-torch and bent it around a 3/16" steel rod. I hammed it to final shape using a 2x4. Now I had a U shape which was cut to a J with an air grinder. Then its just a matter of measuring and cutting to fit where needed. The end result:


To secure it, I drilled a few holes in the center and welded it to the metal beneath.

Now everything gets sanded with a DA for a nice feather before the body filler goes on.



Now the best practice at this point would be to mix up some fiberglass to fill any pinholes left in the welds. I skipped this step. It's up to you but best practice is to use the fiberglass before the body filler! First layer of filler on and sanded... second round is drying..


Pain in the butt area to work on with the windshield in place

That's all I've got so far. Hoping to spray some etching primer tomorrow and get the filling primer finished up by mid-week.

I also have videos of this work on youtube. Like I said, I haven't done this before so I'm kind of learning as I go. Hopefully it might help someone else who needs to do this job!

http://www.youtube.com/user/zz3astro?feature=mhee
Just look for the ones labeled TTop Rust Repair!

IROC#1

Nice work on the rust repair!

Hey, whats the deal with the rear seat?? That looks like it belongs in a 70's pimp mobile!!

toxik IROC

iTrader: (12)

good job man, I had done something similar but did not have that much rust..keep it up

mjdavis68

iTrader: (1)

LOL +1 on the seats.....
impressive repair

ZZ3Astro

Yeah those seats LOL... they look like a bass boat. Actually they're kinda cool. I told him he should mount a fishfinder in it for the next bass boat comment he gets!

I'm doing this job sort of as a practice run for my daughter's Monte Carlo SS, which has some rust on the edge of the roof above the passenger door. If I can get this car sealed up, the Monte will be nothing!

toxik IROC

iTrader: (12)

dude that reminded me of the rides at coney island!!!! o i miss those days

ZZ3Astro

More progress today.. we finished up the body filler work and blocked it out. Not perfect but pretty decent. Self etching primer was applied to all bare metal and edges after masking up the car. Primer/filler should go on in the next day or two.

ZZ3Astro

Well, it's done. It's not anywhere near perfect, but that's exactly how this was planned to be. The car needs to be painted and there was no point in putting a ton of effort into blocking it. I handed him the sanding blocks and told him I'd be inside relaxing. It didn't take long for him to tell me he'd had enough and it was good enough lol. Blocking is a big job that no one wants to do. I spent weeks blocking mine and still fell short on a few areas!

After priming it should have been guided coated and blocked and filled and primed again.. and blocked again! But alas, we fast-tracked it so he could have a dry ride.

Also this is basically a big learning project for me and that's why I was doing it as a favor to him. I got to learn how to cut and weld panels, do blending and spray metallic. Blending agent is pretty cool. I learned how 'not' to use it today. With a little more practice though, I think can make it work nicely.

Sealer coat! This metallic color (and especially this cheaper Omni paint) really needed a sealer coat, but that would have added about $40 to the cost of supplies. It took a good bit of paint (4 coats of base) to hide everything.

Metallic.. oh boy, I can see where I did things wrong on the final coat. It is VERY picky about the direction the gun is pointed and moving. I should have been more on top of that. Must keep in mind, he's getting it painted anyway! lol

So whoever paints this car in the future can DA this thick clear down, put a bit of filler here and there and it's a solid foundation to a good paintjob. With that info out of the way, here is how it looks. Certainly better than those big rust holes!


Ready for clear.. wish I had feather-edged that tape line - the blender agent would have worked much better.





Hey look! Someone forgot to clear the door!

I love this color. My daughter walked by today and said she likes the idea of this on the Monte... exactly my thoughts last night.

82tarecaro

iTrader: (4)

Do you know what kind of t top seals he is using on that?

camaro1185

Good work, I watched a little bit of the work on your youtube page!.

Meatman

iTrader: (4)

Thats impressive man. Good work.

ZZ3Astro

He got the Metro seals. Something interesting is there are extra brackets on his 92 car that were not on my 87. You can see it in the second to last picture in my previous post - it's at the back top of the door window coming off of the TTop mount. Also has one at the front mount as well. It really does a good job of supporting the seals and its exactly where mine has problems leaking from a pinched seal. We'll see how his turns out and I might have to go visit the junk yard and find me a 90's ttop car to borrow some from!

82tarecaro

iTrader: (4)

Does that piece weld in or bolt in? Maybe I'll try to get a set of those too.

ZZ3Astro

They bolt in and are even adjustable like the ttop latch brackets (the round plastic things). There are plastic 'seats' built into the seals for them. I was wondering why the Metro gaskets did but the original gaskets did not (as far as I can remember).

ZZ3Astro

Seals are all done. I put up a video of how I did it so maybe that will help someone out there who is planning to do this job. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoqy-tWmR0k








This last pic shows a close-up of the 'secondary seal' that is done by flooding weatherstrip adhesive on top of the gasket channel. This is done AFTER the main seal glue has dried for a couple of hours. This is a continuous flood of adhesive all the way around the outside edge of the gaskets.

82tarecaro

iTrader: (4)

For all the issues I hear on this board about Metro seals, those look amazingly good. It looks like you had no problems in that corner where others have the issue with the weatherstripping not sitting right by the edge of the T top outer seal. You think that metal bracket is the reason?
Nice, clean install. Good Job!

ZZ3Astro

Thanks 82tarecaro. I still don't have the final word on the body to ttop seal fit at those corners. The owner picked it up yesterday and I told him to leave them off another 8 hours or so because I had to add a little more adhesive right before he got here. I have no doubt those brackets will make a big difference though. I remember looking at mine trying to figure out how to brace those plastic tabs. Now I've got my answer!

92firebird 305

And thank you steve for what you did to my old car it never leaked after you fixed it. I trades that car in for a 2005 gto ls2 camed now

JTEDESCO

great job now i know what i am in for