Rust repair 75 newport

[fury1]

Do you weld for a living? Anyway the work is inspiring. Keep it up.

Thanks man! Yup I'm in the St. Paul Pipefitters union so I weld at work daily. I really do need to get a heavier duty wire feed though. This small one I have works pretty decent for sheet metal.

Wow! That's a lot of nice sheet metal work.

Thank you!!

 

[ImpJay]

You really have skills to do a rust repair. How about a few before/after pics of the whole car?

 

[fury1]

Here are some pictures of the car not long after I bought it. It actually looked really good when I bought it. The chrome trim around the wheel wells and along the rocker was hiding quite a bit of rust though. And I was 16 and stupid... I drove it through one winter. I'm sure that didn't help anything.

And the car as it sits today. Not much really has changed since I bought it. The vinyl top was pretty much peeling off while driving so I finished it off. Sanded the roof down and rattlecanned some black. It was a 400 2 barrel, thankfully because that meant no lean burn! I swapped that to a 4 barrel about 2 years after I got it. Other than replacing some typical things... Not much has gone wrong with it.

 

[mr. fix it]

Nice work!

 

[ImpJay]

Thank you fury1!

 

[oliver]

You are extremely talented. I wish I had your skills.

 

[fury1]

Got started on a panel for the front part of the fender. I used a basic template. I have the basic shape but I'm gonna need to add additional metal to the top to fix the mounting area as well I'll get to that tomorrow.

After my first poor attempt at adding some body filler and sanding most of it back off. I felt a little more confident this time. Let's be real I took my time welding but the panel still pulled a little bit. I don't really like adding Bondo, but after sanding there won't be more than 3/16 in a few of the really low spots. More to come on this as well.

I know this thread is titled rust repair but it's really turning into fixing everything. Including these damn window gaskets. These have leaked water and air by ever since I got the car. I couldn't find anyone who made direct replacements for this car and even if I could they would probably be more than I want to pay. I found this kit on Amazon for early 60s valients. The channel is much smaller than the original... But I had already ripped the old out so I used some 1/2" two sided tape for skylight windows to shim it up. Then used some urethane calking to hold the whole strip up. Left it sit for a day with the window up and tight.It works very good now no water leaking by an no air whisking through. The gasket is tight to the window. Now just to do the passenger side. The rear windows seem good I suppose since they don't see near as much use as the front. There's lots of little odds and ends to go through on this car. I'll try to document it all on this thread.

 

[fury1]

Making some more progress. This fender was literally rusting from the inside-out!

 

[fury1]

Here it is getting tacked up and welded I still need to repair the sheet metal further up the wheel well. More on that tomorrow. The mount on the bottom is in and completely solid now.