rotbox

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun Jul 10, 05 3:08 pm

A while ago my lovely car failed it MOT due to flakey sills, I booked it into a body shop to get them welded but unfortunatly it was not as straightforward as I would have liked...

Considering the car was 'restored' I was hoping that the sill rot was just on the surface...

But, as you can see here the sills were made up of layers of plates, fibreglass and filler. The top image is the paint ground away, and the bottom one is the skin cut away, revealing some pretty rusty inner sills.

Another view,

The guys at the bodyshop reckon they can fix it all up, and although I don't know a great deal about this type of thing I trust them. Strangely the rot seems to stop at the door, and the sill there looks good and original.

They have asked me if I can get a good side image of the rear quater panel that they have had to cut away, mainly because of the small feature line that runs the length of the door and quickly dissappears into the rear fender, so if there are any other barracuda owners out there who can get me a close up picture of this feature I would be very grateful. Also was there a visible seem between the sill and the fender on the original or would it have been filled?

latil · Post by **latil** » Sun Jul 10, 05 4:06 pm

Thats pretty much how I found things on the Fury. It seems that the original construction uses maybe 3 pressings spot welded together. Of course the water comes in round the rear 1/4 window and drips into the sill,and there was not much evidence of drain holes. The joint in the sill by the B post was leaded on mine, if the welder hasn't seen this he'll notice when he starts welding. It was a fairly easy mend but time consuming as I made all new parts for inner and outer sill both sides

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Sun Jul 10, 05 4:17 pm

No visible seam, they were all lead loaded smooth at the factory, to get the correct look, get very drunk, blindfold yourself and throw the lead in the general direction of the car, wipe it smooth along the vertical face (not compulsory) and leave the underside of the sill as rough as poss, if it is smoothish, I would suggest filing it back out of shape with a course file, then to finish forget to paint this area.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun Jul 10, 05 5:37 pm

Ok thanks guys, The welder chap is going to put a drain hole in the wheelarch, mainly he says so I can wax oil it in the future.

I'll pass on on the instructions about seem filling! thanks!

Hopefully once this is sorted I'll finally have the car I wanted!

Holly · Post by **Holly** » Sun Jul 10, 05 6:05 pm

Ah, those photos take me back ... to last week, lol.

On the bright side, they didn't find and newspaper, concrete or plastic bags used to fill the holes!

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun Jul 10, 05 6:30 pm

Well it good to know I'm not alone! I just hope it's ready for the nats...

latil · Post by **latil** » Sun Jul 10, 05 7:29 pm

Alex ,should our man be using molten lead in that state

.
Here`s a pic of mine after the work.

Holly · Post by **Holly** » Sun Jul 10, 05 8:18 pm

latil wrote:Alex ,should our man be using molten lead in that state .
Here`s a pic of mine after the work.

He will if he wants to recreate the factory look, lol

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Sun Jul 10, 05 8:47 pm

Exactly !

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun Jul 10, 05 9:38 pm

JamesKing wrote:Ah, those photos take me back ... to last week, lol.

On the bright side, they didn't find and newspaper, concrete or plastic bags used to fill the holes!

When we had the Satellite bodywork done all those years ago (jeeze! is it really 14 years?), we had a new patch panel for the driver's side front wing and the bit it replaced had a big lump of filler held in by a Golden Virginia tobacco tin lid!
Bit better than newspaper, concrete or plastic bags I suppose; at least it was metal......

latil · Post by **latil** » Sun Jul 10, 05 11:04 pm

Had a mk1 escort van like that chicken wire ,plastic padding 5 coats of underseal for sills.
I hope no-one's implying Mopars were less than perfect when they left the factory

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Sun Jul 10, 05 11:25 pm

Would we??!! I have read horroe stories and seen some wild things on un restored Mopars! good ones are different stripes one side to the other, ditto hub caps, I have noticed on more than one occasion welds, i.e. wheretwo sides of the car are assembled by different workers, Mr goodjob applies 10 welds, Mr cantbebothered does 5 !

Gareth · Post by **Gareth** » Tue Jul 12, 05 7:13 pm

I'd be happy to send you a photo or two of my car if it would help. It's a '68 so as long as the detail lines are identical just let me know what you need and I'll sort it out.