Fabrication.

Yesterday and today I have been cutting out that rusted metal around rear window corners and making a template out of thick paper. Paper is easier to mold around this corner where there is all kind of shapes and sharp turns and bends and what not.

It's a tricky place to mold and eventually weld but I am in no hurry and doing it slowly, spot by spot.
Luckily I had Dremel mini grinder so I could to those final clean ups and more freely to manuver attacking angle of the grinder.

These were my tools for making a template. It was quite easy to do once you got it figured out in your head first. I has been so long when I needed to this thing that I wasn't sure how well this is going to progress.

Those could have been better shaped and molded, but this isn't your trailer queen and show stopper, and after all you don't get to see those since window and trimming is covering almost whole corners completely.

The Caminofication.

The Caminofication. New word to me. There are plenty of cars that has gone through that and I have already posted one or two posts about it. I came a cross this term in this roadandtrack.com article about this Range Rover that had been converted to SUT from SUV. And I have to say, I would never ever need it, but I kind of want it. It's cool looking and functionality is... well.

Leaking rear window, dammit.

I was yesterday at the garage to do a clean up on those rear window corners and as I scrape and poke that surface rust away, I noticed how the sound was a different on that tight corner. As I poke and scrape a bit more it revealed a rusty edge of sheet metal.

As you can see it's straight through, but that light that you can see is inside c-pilar which doesn't lead to inside the cabin. And it wasn't that bad before I started poking it with a screwdriver. So now I have to cut it up and make a template from cardboard and make a small piece from the sheet metal to fit in and spot weld it in place. And same thing to the other side.

I was affraid that it was this bad and I was relieved that it wasn't as I post on my last post, but now I am a bit of stressed. I know how to use welder and bend the steel, but it's always a bit of work for me as I am not used to fabricate sheet metal for tight spots and corners. It takes time and patience. I was hoping that this would have come to me when I have planned whole stripping down to bare metal and do it propeply.

Well now I guess I have to do it because I have the window off and there are still time left before I'll take her out in the open road for a drive. Driving season is planned to start in mid-May. So till next time I'll be in the garage and keep you updated on how this little project goes on.

Rear window leaking.

 It wasn't a huge suprise that rear window leaked on the lower corners. El Camino
s are know that it has a weak spot on those corners. Luckily mine was just that sealer rubber had turned hard by ageing and not the rust eating all healthy metal around the corners. Minor surface rust of course which can be sanded of and sealed in with rust preventing paint.

It was really hard to cut that old sealer rubber. I don't know how many times that piano wire broke in half when we tried to "saw".

So, next move is to grind all that rubber and surface rust off and paint it and put the window back on. I could do it propeply now, but I know that in few years I'll have to address whole car with rust and I have planned stripping it don't and send it to sand blasting or likewise to get all the rust off. There aren't really a point to do it right now in a one spot and then stripping it down in few years. Right?

That's all folks for now. I'll be updating as soon as possible when I get grinding and sanding done.