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Good job in holding the shop accountable!! I wonder how many car owners just accept the previous poor workmanship as normal.
Does the hood now fit up on all sides of the car? Not too high or low and spacing? You know about the rubber snubs on each side of the chassis that can be adjusted to raise or lower the front of the hood. Suggest you take a close look at the hood latch system. Here the male latch part on the hood might be ending up to high for the latch receiver attached to the chassis to engage and lock. If the hood fits up physically and adjusting the snubs does not work might consider shimming the male latch to lower it slightly to engage the receiver lock.
Also check if the hood safety latch is engaging. Had hoods installed in such a way as the safety latch J hook was too far away from the attachment loop to engage. The safety latch was not engaging at all which was unsafe. Needed to shim to get it to engage.
Isn't the safety latch what catches first? Like isn't that what you use the lever under the hood for final release when opening? I haven't fiddled with it but am guessing they turned the bumpers all the way up to level the hood, which is what's making it so hard to close. Bet if I turn them down, the hood gets easier to close but goes back below level.
What I'm getting ready to work on is the rocker. Took these pics comparing driver to passenger side, to see what's going on under there without laying on the ground. The passenger side is a mess. Definitely was lifted wrong, probably by the tire shop that stripped my studs and spilled oil all over my engine. Don't know if I can straighten it out enough to get the rocker skirt back in line, but have been watching videos of people fixing their destroyed pinch welds. Any experience with this?
Yes, the safety latch has the lever and latches first.
If you lower the bumpers will the hood now sit to low?
Unfortunately no experience on the under the chassis issues. If you remove the seat, carpet, etc you should have access to the top side of the damage. Not sure if it can be pounded out.
My own two cents is to do nothing. Seen a lot of underside damage that was never repaired.
Well I had already dug into fixing the mess before you said "do nothing" but I didn't want to say it until I made good progress 😂.
From previous pics you can see the pinch weld was crushed so much that the lower fender bolt was unreachable. I didn't realize at the time that some dumb butt actually caused this by using the plastic trim as a lift point! And crushed the trim in, plus folding the pinch weld.
I also didn't think to take pics of my progress, but here is where I'm at now. After prying and pulling back into something resembling the original shape, I got the pinch weld straight enough to get a socket on the bolt head. Of course the bolt head broke off even after days of penetrant soaking. So I've been working to drill out the broken bolt. At this point I have finally got the bolt drilled out, slightly off center, but after using a tap I think I can install a "same as original" bolt in its place. Will add an extra lock nut just to be sure.
Also have been reshaping the fender end where it was damaged by the "tweaking" so it now is fitting pretty close to original. I could do a little more to make it darn near perfect. Gotta get rust converter, seam sealer, primer, and paint before I go any further. Then I'll buckle up the project. 😂 View from the outside Looking straight up underneath View from backside
Your making decent progress. These repairs are difficult as there are a lot of layers of sheet metal to work with and access is limited.
The rust converter is good idea. Have used this on surface rust and at times without even top coating.
Might look into thin spray on top coatings that will flow into all areas to act as a rust barrier. I would tend to AVOID the rubberized coatings at it appears moisture can get under the coating.
Eastwood.com has products to give you an idea of what is out there although never used any of them. Eastwood sells to DIY car restorers.
For rust prevention had good results with spray can zinc rich materials. The material is thin enough to flow everywhere as into seams then dries. Not sure you can top coat zinc but its under the car so no will see it. This as opposed to a rubberized material which just tends to cover gaps rather then flow into them.
The Rust-Oleum products are good. Use the oil based ones. Might be too thick for getting into seams.
Get something you can spray into every hole, seam, etc perhaps with a small tube that attaches to the nozzle and is thin enough to flow everywhere.
Can't find the rust converter I used years ago. It was a brush on product and turned the rust black. I used it on my porch/steps frame (mobile home thing) and it held up for years without top coating. Not sure what to buy now. Also do you think seam sealer is absolutely necessary, or just make sure I get full coverage of the rust converter up inside the layers? That's another thing I'm not finding at our local parts stores.
Backing up to the hood latch/catch issue. I looked today and there is no way to shim the part attached to the hood. Each side of the loop is bent at a 90 degree angle, one going left, one going right. Those legs fit inside/under a contoured sheet metal that's welded to the hood.
And yes they turned bumpers way up to level the hood. That's why I really have to SLAM it down to get latch to engage. I can already see one side is starting to compress enough that the hood is just slightly below fender level. If I turn the bumpers down to a normal shutting force, the hood is low again. This kind of car shouldn't require extreme force to latch the hood. Before I just dropped it and it closed. I'm starting to wonder if they put in the wrong latch support (which is on the list of items they replaced). Not sure where to go from here.
08-06-2022, 10:59 AM
