Dropping the Top! part II

This is the stage where I am cleaning up the convertible top frame for paint.

Bow #1.  Cleaning it up with a wire wheel on a drill.  First I have to remove the tack strip.  It is riveted in place.  Cut the rivets with the Dremel tool.

Bow #2.  Not bad. You can see the felt.

Inside the media blaster.  I took the inlet ballast off to allow for the extra size of the part to blast.

Parts from Bow #2 side mount.  I'll blast these also.

Bow #3 was a pain.  These screws would not budge.  I will have to cut them out, drill, and tap.

The inside damage from rust.  The thick felt I mentioned before rested in this area.  Thus, moisture took it's toll.  I'm sure it is not as bad as some.  But this part was never re-manufactured.  So you have to either make a new one or use what you got.

Drill out the screws.  Start with the smallest drill bit first the move up in size.  Run the drill slow.  Fast speed will just kill the drill bit at this point.  It cuts much better at slow speeds and with oil as a cutting agent.  I use WD40. Not the best for cutting, but it's all I had at the time.  When the bit stops cutting, you ruined it.  You have to go easy on the small bits.

After drilling, I cut in from the side with a Dremel cutoff wheel and then a wedge punch to get under the edge.  Pop it!

Tap all the screw holes.  Then blast it and paint it.

Blasted.  Paint next.

Bow #4

Cleaned it up with a wire wheel.

Putting the frame back together.

Bows 2, 3, and 4 installed.

Bow 1 installed.

Rivet a new tack strip onto bow #1.

Done. Need to tweak a few bolts and I will remove the frame and store it and get the body work finished for paint.

Dropping the Top! Part I

Dropping the Top!  Literally!

I will remove the cloth top, the frame, the power top hydraulics, paint the frame.  Reassemble and then remove the whole frame as one.  Store it away in the basement and continue to prep the car for painting.  I had already removed the back part of the top (back glass/clear vinyl) when I worked in the  top well.  In my last blog I talked about how I should have removed the top before working in the top well.  These are the stages I took to remove the top and frame.

First I removed the weather stripping and then started to work on bow # 1.  There is 4 bows total.  The front, two in the middle and one on the back.  Bows 1 and 4 have tack strips.  Bow 1 is made up of alloy and the rest are steel.  

Bows 2 and 3 look just alike except they fit differently and they are marked on the inside JIC.  They also had a felt padding inside the ends of the top of the bows.  I guess to keep lines from showing up in the curve of the sides in the top.  This area showed a lot of rust issues because the felt was so thick, it held moisture for a long time.  You will see this in part II.

These next few pics are the break down in stages.  It helped a lot to still have the power top working.

Bow #4 tack trim being removed.

The locking truss and handle.  The driver side handle was broken and I replaced it years ago with this aftermarket handle.  Notice the shinny bolt and no ford part number.  And the spring is missing.  I will make this part look much better when finished.  It is a lot easier to work in the area without the top on. 

Just about finished with removing the cloth.  It has a lot of staples to remove.  Pulling and prying and it will come off.  Like I mentioned before, keep the old top for a template for the new top.

Next is breaking down the frame.  Media blasting it, paint and reassemble.

Lassie! Where's Timmy? Stuck in the Top Well again?

While I am repairing panels and detailing parts, I began working in the convertible top well area.  I cleaned up and removed the old seam sealer and prep the area for primer.

I cleaned it up with a wire wheel brush on a drill.  One small section had some surface rust.  Painted that area with POR15.

Primer

Let it dry.

Apply a little seam sealer on the edge of the panels.  I found some black cloth tape in this area on the edge of the panels when I was cleaning it up with a wire-wheel.  I'll research this tape more.  I know it was used to hold down wiring and I found it used to block off a large oval hole by the top frame and rear quarter window.

A little on the teeth :-)

Let it set up.

A little paint.  

Take the rag top off next. I should have done it before this clean up. I'll post that next.

More Quarter panel and trunk pics

As I mentioned before, the previous work done by a body shop somewhere did a crappy job in hanging the rear quarters as can be seen here where the trunk lid and rear quarter tips don't match up.

Of course I am going to repaint the car. I have painted a few cars before and I also have better equipment.  I have no choice at this point.  I thought about just touching up the paint job and matching the paint color but after many attempts I found they never used the original color to paint the car.  They got it close, and I got close to matching that color, but it is still not the original color.  So I am just going to finish it up on the correct side as close to stock as possible.  Fixing the area of the trunk has been a huge task and still more to come.

Enjoy!  More to come soon!

Not much can be done to fix it other than cut the welds and align the panel.  I only cut the rear welds so I could match it up.  When you need to replace panels, dry fit everything around that area first before welding then tack weld and look again and again...

Additional pics uploaded 033010.  Here is the butchery of hacking away at a poorly hung rear quarter panel.  I had to cut away at the welds from the previous work.  I cut a V into the lip area and inside the trunk I cut away at part of the panel it attaches to.  

A lot of ugly work being done. Cutting and metal bumping.

Still hacking and drilling and bumping!

Close to being finished!

This is how I goo on the sealer.

Cheap soft bristle toothbrush (4 @ $2) gives me a better grip than the acid brush.  

Seam sealer Fast n' Firm ($20).  Save all you can from this tube.  I seal it back up when finished which is why I don't use it in a caulking gun.  If you can get it close to a lamp or heater, it spreads much better when warm.

A little dab will do ya!

Give it that nice brush stroke texture.

And the passenger side is sealed!

Fixed it after many hours of working the metal.

I just loose fit the end caps for a sight check.  There is a rubber seal that need to go under the caps during assembly.

Looks much better!  Tweak the trunk lid a bit and it will be fine.

Drivers side

Now I need to fix that warble in the middle of the rear panel next to the gas cap.

More to come!  I am using my good camera now and not the iPhone to take pics.

Drivers Side Quarter Glass

This is the part where I put the car back together.  You know how easy it is to take a car apart.  Hope you bagged and labeled each part.  I know almost every nut and bolt but somethings all look the same.

Putting the car back together is more fun when it all starts to go according to the plan.  Here I am cleaning up and putting the driver side rear quarter glass back in.  Wrap it up to keep it from getting over-spray from painting the car.

I welded this area of the quarter panel but first I removed the glass.  Glass and hot weld slag doesn't mix I know from experience.  CarLite original glass is hard to find in good shape and replacement new glass is not cheap.  $250 each.  Ouch!

When I needed to put the top down for the quarter panel window project, I didn't have a battery for the car.  I used a jumper-box before but it died on me and wouldn't hold a charge.  So I grabbed a gel cell from the battery backup UPS I use for power outages.  It's 12 volts.  Hooked it up and it works fine.

Got the top down and working on the drivers side quarter window.  

Wow!  The car looks pretty cool from this angle.  You can also see the garage door insulation I added during the winter.  It really helps to keep the garage warm or cool depending on the climate.  Working next to the garage door, you sure can feel the temperature outside so this was a bonus for my Man-Cave!  :-)

I pulled the window out and removed the glass.  Cleaned it up with a razor and glass cleaner.  Polished the plating with fine steel wool and buffing wax.  Put the glass back into the frame and cleaned it up again.  Soft grips on the bench vise and you can also see the Scott Drake Window crank still in the plastic behind the window.  LOL.  That's been there a while.

Laid out the parts, and cleaned up each one.

Diagram, not much help but I didn't need that round rubber thing.  Where did it come from? It was in the take apart.  Who knows.

Glass and frame are back inside the quarter panel.  It is a lot tougher than it looks.  After many tries, I figured out you have to put the glass into the window area first and insert the glide-guide into the window or else the end-stops will not allow it to fit into the channel section.  If you have ever worked in this window channel, it is a pain unless you know the order to install each part and I cannot find the information anywhere.  Hope this helps anyone else out there that is trying this.

Post more pics soon!  I'm working everyday on this pony!

Nice rear... ahh quarter panel part II

This is pics of the work I did on the front half of the driver-side rear quarter panel.

This is the area where the driver side door meets the rear quarter panel.  The rear quarter panel was replaced but they did a really poor job of fitting and welding as can been seen in this pic.  Angle grinders are good for somethings.  Dremel tools are better for the small stuff!  :-)

This is the template I setup for the replacement section.

After cutting out the bad part I made a template of the section and this is the new metal in place ready for welding.

After the weld and clean up.

A little spot putty, wet sanding and...

I primed it in gray and then used seam sealer with a toothbrush.  I thought I had a pic.  Will look for it.  Sand, paint, sand, paint, shoot with a little Tahoe Turquoise, and there you can see my labor of detail.  This is what it suppose to look like.  :-)

Looks good.  I'm sure I'll re-do part of it before I paint the whole car.  LOL