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More tools is never a bad thing! I've heard good things about the Contour, hopefully it makes the job easier.

I hope, especially now that other companies are making replacement sanding drums for it. Including HF.

The passenger side of the car for sure had a harder life.

Before I started doing the rust repair on that side, I need to try to straighten that entire panel first as welding in new metal may have locked in the damage.

All the areas circled are dents.




So i roughed most of those out first.

The rear fender always fit a little oddly and didn't line up that well. Now I know why. This fender mounting point in the wheel well was pushed out pretty far. Here is the difference when compared to the drivers side.




After some adjustments with a BFH.




There was slightly more inner structure that wasn't completely rusted away on this side.




Patch fitted...




Mostly welded in. I need to also fix some thin metal in the wheel well.

But I just about got the entire patch welded in, when I ran out of welding gas, and of course the AirGas store is closed until Monday. So guess I'll need to move on to other items until I can refill the bottle.

It’s looking good, Kevin!

Well maybe you've got a full bottle of beer to pass the time till then....

Either that or She who must be obeyed has other tasks you can attend to!

Kevin: you are earning your aircraft frame mechanic's merit badge with those Cleco's! Very methodical and deliberate. Well done.

Flackmaestro: Only a few nerd-geezers admit to getting your reference...nice...my "boss" snickers when I use that reference...for the younglings:youtube.com/watch?v=_LEAAy44wnQ

Kev, for those of use who haven't done bodywork, what is that blue tool called? Looks pretty slick!

They are called profile gauges. Used to check/transferred contours from one place to another. Great for checking the left and right of something match!

Here is the one I have:

harborfreight.com/10-in-contour-gauge-58311.html

Quote:

Yes, they are very handy and don't strip out or mushroom the holes like TEK screws do. Especially, when you're fitting and making adjustments where you need to take the panel on and off multiple times. They also work great to hold oddly sharped pieces together where you can't easily clamp. The 1/8" holes are typically one quick zap with the MIG welder to close back up.

Just don't mislay the Cleco tool!

Working on a variety of small body dents here and the hardest one to work out is the this one.





This is right on the raised body line on the passenger side of the rear quarter. It's hard to see from this picture, but that line is dented I which is causing a low spot in panel around it.

From another angle and holding a straight edge against it you can see it.




Normally this wouldn't be to bad, but that back side on the panel is very hard to get to as it's under where the body inner panel comes down to create a flange for the package tray to side on.




So at first I ground down the paint, and used a uni-spotter (stud-welder).




But the dent was so sharp, the stud kept popping off before pulling the dent out.

So I had to use a variety of odd tools to get up between the panels and hammer it out from the inside. Which means I had to get Nicole involved to hold the body dolly against the outside why I help whatever improvised tool against the dent from the inside and they stuck it with the hammer.

Eventually we got there and it's now pretty close. I can probably now get the rest with the uni-spotter.