Great Moments In Reconstruction…

At the end of World War II, the United States’ Secretary of State George Marshall observed an urgent need for economic assistance to the devastated European Theater. With significant infrastructure destroyed by the war, Europe was on the brink of total economic collapse.

The Marshall Plan, was drafted in June of 1947 with a goal reconstructing war-devastated regions, removing trade barriers and modernizing industry. The plan was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Truman in April 1948. Over the course of four years, 13 billion dollars (valued at over 130 billion today accounting for inflation) was distributed to friend and old foe alike.

The plan was largely considered a success. At the conclusion of the Marshall plan in 1952, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels. The decades to follow would see Western Europe experience strong  growth, peace and prosperity.

Another great moment in reconstruction took place this weekend as I began the reconstruction of Mystique’s rear metal work.

If you recall from last week, Mystique took her place in my shop with her…ahem… posterior pointed towards my work area:

At the time of her move, a fair chunk of her metal work had been removed due to rust and damage:

The goal for this last weekend was to replace the passenger-side trunk drop off:

Truth be told, there wasn’t anything horrifically wrong with this piece of metal. It had a couple of small pin holes, but nothing that couldn’t have been fixed. The true purpose of replacing this piece was to get me more comfortable and practiced in welding against old metal on the actual car. The fact that this piece is tucked away from view and was less than 20 dollars allowed me an inexpensive and low-risk opportunity to hone my skills and see what I could do.

I started by placing the new trunk drop off up against the old so I could measure what parts of the old piece I needed to remove. I immediately learned that they ship these pieces a bit big to ensure a proper fit and that some future trimming will be required.

With the new piece clamped into place, I outlined where I needed to cut and ran into the first problem of the day:

The trunk floor has a ridge that the new trunk drop off does not replicate. In order to keep the ridge, I’d either have to recreate it on the new piece, make it out of weld slag or cut around it and notch the new piece.

I chose the later and made my final cut leaving the ridged section of the trunk floor and drop off intact. The additional complication led to me screwing up another measurement (I really need to get better at this) and cutting my new piece too short around the sectioned area of the original piece. However, this time I decided to just fix it instead of getting a new part. I sectioned in and butt welded the small corrective piece I needed in about 20 minutes.

With the cut made, I dry-fit the new piece to the old metal:

After a little trimming, I was really happy with the fit. For the most part, the two pieces of metal fit directly together. The only exception was the rear section next to the wheel house that was very difficult to cut due to space constraints. I ended up cutting just a little bit too much off there, but it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t work with.

To help fill in the gap, I used a large bar of copper as a heat sink backing. I affixed the copper bar using magnets to hold it up against the bottom of both panels:

Copper is a great conductor of heat. By using this bar, I was able to largely avoid blowing holes in the metal while welding. I was also able to use it as a base to fill in the gap between the two metal pieces by the wheel well because the welding slag will melt against the copper but won’t stick to it.

With the bar in place, I took a deep breath and started the process of welding up tons of little stitch welds. The process took a long time. It’s important not to do too many welds at once or you’ll end up warping the metal due to the heat involved.

I ended up working on four different sections at the same time. I’d do three stitch welds on one section and then move to another section on a different part of the panel. This allowed me to more evenly distribute the heat across the panels rather than concentrate it in one area. Once I was done with three or four sections, I’d cool the metal off with compressed air and start the process over again.

After a couple of hours, I was rewarded with this:

I was really, really happy with how it turned out. You can see that the gap on the left has been filled in and there’s a nice line of stitch welds joining both pieces of metal. I know it’s not perfect, but for my first attempt I’m darn pleased with how it turned out. After I grind the welds down, you’ll be hard pressed to know there’s a repair to that panel.

As is normal, not everything went perfectly. The area where I cut around the ridged metal fought me every step of the way. Even with a backer, I was having difficulty not blowing holes in the metal. At the end of the day, it may have been better to sacrifice that ridge, but nevertheless after some really ugly welds that piece too is now affixed to the new trunk drop off:

The last challenge of the day was welding the new trunk drop off to the wheel house. When Mystique was built, these two panels were bonded together using spot welds. I do not have a spot welder so in order to bond them together I had to use a technique called plug welding.

Plug welding is when you punch a hole in one piece of metal, overlay that metal on another piece and then weld the hole shut – thus bonding the two pieces of metal together. You can see the holes I drilled in the drop off in this picture:

I’d practiced plug welding a bit before and felt I was decent enough at it to give it a go. However, what I hadn’t practiced was plug welding while laying on my back under a car with a set of leaf springs and an exhaust pipe in my way:

It took a little bit (and a couple of “well that didn’t work, let’s grind the weld off and try again” attempts) before I was satisfied that the plugs were good enough to hold.

And with that, phase I of Mystique’s reconstruction was almost complete:

This week, I’ll grind down the welds and fix any pin holes I find. Once I’m done with that, I’ll be ready for the next phase of the project which will be metal prep for the rest of the panels. I need to wheel Mystique out of the shop and sand blast some of the panels and apply rust treatment to ensure that the metal I’ll be working against is as rust free as possible. I also have a few holes I need to weld up. Once I’m done with that I’ll figure out which panel I’ll put on next.