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Ok guys I just spent a few hours out in the shop attempting some repairs. I thought about this project a lot in the last few weeks and decided to not get frustrated over time or lack of experience. It took Noah 40 years to build the ark. Anyway i decided to start on a few of the larger holes on the rail between the side vista window and the lower side window. Here is a picture of the hole.
I found an old gat latch from a chain link fence I had laying around. I know it is galvanized, I ground that off as best I could. This is really soft metal but pretty thick and it is what I could find not being a fabricator there isn't much of that kind of stuff laying around my shop.
Some more rat turds, I figure if i get enought it will hold.
Finally decided that was enought sacriledge for the welding gods to absorb in one go. Ground it down somewhat to level off the high spots. Anyway this should be enough strength to level out the rest with some of that fiber bondo stuff, any thoughts on that
or recommendations? I don't think I can weld enought to make a pretty patch so this is what I am hoping to do about forty more times on either side.
My Vista has a couple small bubbles above the drip rail near the upper side windows and leaks a little from one of the front vista window's in a hard rain but I am NOT touching it, and I am a body man. Its like the proverbial basket of snakes, I would not want to get into a project like you have there.
I looked at that website and will probably use some of their products, too bad they don't have pre-formed pieces for the Vista windows although I suppose one could use some of their other pieces and try to form them to fit, sectioning them in piece by piece. The problem for my application is that the top panel is rusted away in many places and I don't have that finished curve to attach to, especially on the passenger side. Not wanting to seem to uneducated about the whole thing but it would be nice if they had a how-to video on using their products from beginnnig to end, for instance, would I need the hard rubber glass setting blocks (item 6) on all the widows?
Back again after a two month hiatus. This summer is awful hot, seems hotter now that I am older too. Anyway, I was toying with the idea of trying to make many of these repairs with a medium other than welding solid steel. I realized that this car will probably never be anything near a full restoration so it probably doesn't deserve the time and money for a "correct" solution to this window channel problem. Specifically does anyone have ideas or suggestions from experience on using epoxy mixes reinforced with metal? I have found that Eastwood and POR 15 both have stuff like this as probably other manufacturers do as well. It seems that a repair made with this stuff would be much easier for me to work with the exception of a few locations like the passenger rear window at the top.
May 2nd, 2023, 08:02 AM
