RobzWorkz#1: CRASH and Body Repair

FerrariChat community:
I purchased my 328 last year with the intention of learning to accomplish quality restoration without the 10X F-car price markup...I would have to expand my skills and innovation. My intention is only to restore the car so as to enjoy it better. I am not completing a concours restoration. Therefore, I am doing many various exercises at reduced cost with my effort adding most of the value. I am calling my postings "RobzWorkz" with a # for each effort. There should be several over the next year or so.

I have already completed many tasks such as freshening my interior without spending $7K for new stuff; I merely wished to have an enjoyable interior. I didn't post as a process since so many have already done this effort with differeing levels of quality and some were even concourse full interior replacements. I am generally pleased with the improvement as in my 328 as shown here:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=263024&highlight=freshened


My first documented effort was purely unintentional. When I purchased the 328, all of the body was in good order; only improving the paint polish was necessary. However, when I was troubleshooting the coolant fans, I inadvertantly made the car go into reverse, causing significant impact. This occurred late November 2009. The details are explainable and logical reasoning was not forsaken during the incident. These details will likely be described in another thread upon request. The photos below show the impact damage. The vehicle impacted a truck bumper at the height of the rear RT corner, causing significant damage to the body metal and destroying the RH tail lights.
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Below are photos of all the hardware removed. The body metal was ready for cutting. Markings are with a Sharpie so as to identify cutting lines.
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Initial cutting was completed quickly after acquiring some air-operated tools. The first section to be cut out was the RT quarter panel end and the corner joint. The pictures show the significant amount of crash stress that was loaded into the body on impact. The first picture shows a significant displacement from relaxed to stressed positions of the metal. The caveat here is: BE VERY CAREFUL CUTTING CRASHED METAL SINCE STRESSED METAL MAY CAUSE YOUR CUTTER/NIBBLER/SAW TO JAM AND CAUSE INJURY!!!
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The entire RH corner was affected, so I decided to remove the RH tail light buckets and part of the tail panel.
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I removed all the insulation in the trunk area so as to minimize the source for fire since I would be using a welding or brazing method to attach metal.

I also closed the deck lid/engine bonnet to see if damage was done to the platform area for holding/locking the cover. Pictures show that alignment is acceptable. Thus no more metal needed removing.

Since this was a "slow" impact, only body metal was affected=> no need to have the frame checed. It was in good order.
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Since I was NOT going to spend the $4K-$8K to acquire body panels, I needed to determine the gauge of steel and asses the paint thickness and and beginn to decide the metal fabrication methods to use for the repair. So I took the pieces removed and measured and characterized them. I determined that the metal was 20 gauge sheet mild steel.
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Over the winter break, I purchased a basic arc welder (stick welder with 1/16" and 3/32" rod...also called insulated metal arc welder...110VAC; don't have 220 available in the garage) and a stitch welder from Harbor Freight and practiced with them. After many practice welds, I determined that I could acceptably weld 3/16" or thicker metal, but not sheet metal; sheet was basically consumed with this method. FYI, I purposely did not buy a quality MIG welder since I didn't have 220VAC available and wanted to wait until I could use a MIG/TIG outfit that would allow for using proper gas and 220VAC; I didn't want to spend the low amount of money for a flux-core welder (MIG w/o gas only) nor the high amount of money for a system capable of MIG and TIG...too expensive for this effort. I will wait since I do believe that using MIG and TIG will be beneficial for future projects. Please recall, I am working on a budget. Also, I could not adequately learn how to use the stitch welder, apparently designed especially for welding sheet metal, and thus deserted it as well.

I thus decided to use a brazing method to rebuild the metal body and forsook the arc welder altogether. The photo shows the basic setup used for brazing sheet metal. Since this effort was small, I simply purchased a Bernzomatic oxy-polypropylene welding/brazing torch from Home Depot. If I need to do more brazing and welding than for this effort, I will purchase a large oxy-propylene system (BTW, this is a much safer system than oxy-acetylene, so consider it). FYI, to do all the work herein, I used two small propylene fuel tanks and about 20 (yes 20) small oxygen tanks; the O2 consumes quickly for brazing/welding.

Interesting story: I was quite lucky in that Home Depot was transferring away from Bernzomatic O2 cylinders, so I was able to get them for ONE CENT each, when they normally cost abou $8 each. I once went into HD and acquired 15 O2 cylinders with a total price of 17 CENTS!!! I was happy
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Good advice: except my hand brake didn't hold, even after considerable cable adustment...I will be restoring this VERY soon=> placed car in reverse. Also, my interior was fully opened...GTS, no targa top on...easy access. Basically, I was tickling the radiator fans to see if they worked. I was concerned that the fans would only work if the engine was "running" (as opposed to having the ignition switch on...BTW, ignition on is enough to check the radiator fans when at temperature...don't start the engine!!!). I thought I could get a second or two of crank time on the engine without engagement (happened every time before)...I was wrong...now I have the lesson in body work

 

Since I was using high heat, I decided to remove the rear bumper (I'm refinishing it right now). The photos below show the car ready to insert metal.

I decided to make the tail light panel first. I was fortunate in that I could cannibalize the tail light buckets and incorporate them into the repair panel. The third photo shows the conventional method for using symmetry for aligning bodywork using cardboard forms. The bottom photo shows the cut-out tail light bucket panel.
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These photos show the brazing done to fabricate the tail light bucket panel. After cannibalizing the original bucket sheet metal and stripping it of all paint, I took a raw piece of sheet steel and formed it to match the original tail light rear panel. I then used an air-operated nibbler to cut out the opening in the sheet metal suitable for brazing in the bucket panel; I was well pleased after all the metalwork was completed.

There are a lot of details embedded in this sequence: creating lap joints for all metal-to-metal butt junctions; using sheet metal screws in the full bucket panel in the rear of the car for retaining the panel during installation brazing, cleaning up and final grinding to shape the metal. In the bottom picture, the screws holding the panel in place are visable. After brazing in the rear panel, the screws were removed and the holes brazed over. If requested, will provide more details.
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Now was the time to rebuild the corner itself. There was enough metal from the bucket panel to set up for the rear corner pieces. All I had to do was shape the pieces, make the lap joints, and install the pieces.

This part shows the fabrication of the top of the corner. Here it is important to create the proper curve that continued from the rear of the engine cover.
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This section shows the fabrication of the rear-most corner edge and its attachment to the rear light/tag panel.
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After a lot of metal shaping and checking with the cardboad forms, I was satisfied with the rear panel being installed. I spent a lot of time trying to use various methods to shape the metal. First, I used the grinder to remove metal not associated with the final shape. Then I used several metal shrinking methods to form the metal to within expected limits: these methods included using the torch and cold water, hammering techniques and an improvised shrinking disk with cold water.
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Now for the rear outside panel. This was a challenge since I don't own the proper tools: English wheel and power planishing hammer. Of course the first effort is to make forms using the body's symmetry. The bottom picture shows the installed lap joint on the side panel necessary for installing the fabricated corner panel into the rear quarter.
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This is the most disappointing of the process: I was sincerely hoping to complete metal shaping well enough so that all I had to do was apply primer and filler paints, shape the paint and top coat and clear coat; not to happen here; I had to shape the metal and cut out the horizontal seam of the original all the way from the rear corner to the wheel well so that I could re-create the seam to look correct; basically, the crash distorted the quarter panel enough so that I could not just attach a repair panel to the wheel well panel without it looking like a monster crease; thus the dreaded body filler was to be used. OUCH!!!

The quarter panel was installed after much effort to shape the metal using known hand techniques. The first photo shows the completed rework and installation of repair metal.

To finish the metal repair required body filler. I thus chose the best I know, that is Evercoat Metal 2 Metal, one of the best.
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I thus applied the filler as necessary and shaped with a "cheese grater" to close-to-finish shape. Then, I finished with sanding and was ready to apply primer paints. FYI, the final sanding was good enough so thet I was well inside the 1/16" recommended tolerance to shape. I was fairly pleased here. Also, to re-create the horizontal seam, I used a metal rule to shape the filler from the top first. Then, after the top cured, I was able to complete the seam with filler applied from the bottom. The bottom picture shows the first etching primer coat.
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This section is quite truncated: basically, the remainder of the repair was to apply and shape paint until satisfied that the car looked undamaged. I first used filler primer, the color coats. After shaping the color, I applied clear coats; this is because I determined that the paint on the rest of the car was coated with clear coat. I am generally satisfied with the painting effort.

NOTE: the paint on the car when I acquired it, was not Rossa Corsa, as I could tell the car had been repainted with a lighter color; it was basically GM Bright Red, which was available in spray cans. Thus the entire repair was done with spray cans...and looks great too. If I ever choose to do a concourse restoration, I will have to take the body down to bare metal, prep it and have Rossa Corsa applied...that's a decision for much later...and expensive.
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After several iterations of applying and shaping primer paint, the application of red lacquer was done, with adequate clear coat for polishing. This took a few iterations as well: painting red and wet sanding and eventually painting clear coat and wet sanding, etc. I am well pleased for my effort and believe that this paint refinish will last a few years, as I save up fo concourse refinishing. I will make this decision based on my interest in whether I want to continue to drive the car for fun, or go to shows; I actually purchased the car for the fun part, though.
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