Re: 51Packard's....51 Packard
Posted by Charles On 2012/3/27 19:50:21
3-27-12
Today was spent cleaning up the trunk area. Rusty mentioned that maybe my weld area was not derusted enough. I ground the welds down and wire brushed it again. While I was at it, I wire brushed some more areas of the trunk and guess what? More rust holes appeared! I feel really down about this, but I will recover. I honestly had no idea the trunk was this bad off. Hind sight being 20/20, I would have been ahead of the game if I would have bought the bullet and bought the trunk pan from Classic 2 Current. Oh well. I will persevere. The trunk will definitely not pass for OEM, but now my goal must be to have a strong car body again, regardless of what it looks like. I will just have to cover it all up with filler, lead, carpet or whatever.
I also tested my theory that the passenger side of the car is sagging (resting on the frame) causing the trunk to be misaligned. I jacked the car up really high and put a 2x4 in the wheel well between the fender and tire. I lowered the car so the body was being supported by the 2x4 and the frame dropped down.
The trunk did not align so I jacked up the back part of the body by putting some plywood under the new patch panel I put in. My welds do not look great, but they are definitely strong because I was able to jack up the car body with pressure only on that panel and my welds. Tested the trunk lid again and still not a good fit.
Then I took out a level and did some tests. The trunk lid is straight across, but the back filler panel droops on both ends. Looks like the middle must have been pushed up causing a hill. One more hurdle to overcome!
Attach file:
(71.85 KB)
(58.85 KB)
(70.87 KB)
(54.47 KB)
(79.90 KB)
(74.32 KB)
(42.52 KB)
(51.40 KB)
Today was spent cleaning up the trunk area. Rusty mentioned that maybe my weld area was not derusted enough. I ground the welds down and wire brushed it again. While I was at it, I wire brushed some more areas of the trunk and guess what? More rust holes appeared! I feel really down about this, but I will recover. I honestly had no idea the trunk was this bad off. Hind sight being 20/20, I would have been ahead of the game if I would have bought the bullet and bought the trunk pan from Classic 2 Current. Oh well. I will persevere. The trunk will definitely not pass for OEM, but now my goal must be to have a strong car body again, regardless of what it looks like. I will just have to cover it all up with filler, lead, carpet or whatever.
I also tested my theory that the passenger side of the car is sagging (resting on the frame) causing the trunk to be misaligned. I jacked the car up really high and put a 2x4 in the wheel well between the fender and tire. I lowered the car so the body was being supported by the 2x4 and the frame dropped down.
The trunk did not align so I jacked up the back part of the body by putting some plywood under the new patch panel I put in. My welds do not look great, but they are definitely strong because I was able to jack up the car body with pressure only on that panel and my welds. Tested the trunk lid again and still not a good fit.
Then I took out a level and did some tests. The trunk lid is straight across, but the back filler panel droops on both ends. Looks like the middle must have been pushed up causing a hill. One more hurdle to overcome!
Attach file:
(71.85 KB)
(58.85 KB)
(70.87 KB)
(54.47 KB)
(79.90 KB)
(74.32 KB)
(42.52 KB)
(51.40 KB)
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