Project '67 LeMans Body Fabrication & Repair

Today on muscle car lou takes on some body work. He's never tried before. You can't teach an old dog new tricks,

but they still might wet the carpet and a look at one of the strongest mo parts we've seen in a while. A 1970 challenger T A,

the definition of a muscle car, a rear wheel drive extension of a man's

ego or lack of today's show is all about egos. Some guys are afraid to try new things because they'll screw them up. Screwing up is how you learn.

So we're gonna show you how to do something that most guys would run from tackling major rust

on major body parts.

They usually appear in the worst spots, bends, curves and hard to duplicate pieces.

Could you imagine what it would cost you for a body shop to fix this? At about 80 bucks an hour. It could trash your budget now. Bean and I trashed my ego a long time ago. Let's give it a whirl.

We'll start by recreating the bend

a

little at a time for uniformity

and yes, a piece of pipe and a hammer will do the same thing.

And now I can cut it down to a more manageable size

and clean up the mess.

The new part should be as narrow as you can get it.

The less metal you replace the less chance for error.

Now's a good time to admit.

I've never tried to repair this complicated before. Remember, I'm not a body guy

but metal is metal.

The new piece dictates how much of the old one comes out.

Common sense tells me some bracing to keep the original panel in place could be helpful.

And now it's time to see if my ego gets repaired as well.

After finding a flush spot, start tacking

the rest of the 10 will need to be persuaded, flushed

by pushing

and pulling

those brackets. Now serve two purposes. Oh,

you got. This gap is a planned necessity because it gives the wealth a place to penetrate.

I threw my pride out the window and asked Tommy for an extra set of hands and some encouragement.

A little trimming

and finish the tail.

Get comfortable because the rest needs to be finished with random tack wells to distribute the heat.

You don't need any warpage.

Be careful not to grind too much of the wells because you can easily undo what you just worked so hard on. What do you think pretty good for a guy who's never done this before? But this is what you can do when you try something new. Is it perfect? Probably not. Will anyone ever notice it?

I doubt it. But we did save a bundle and I satisfied my need to create.

Here's another common spot for problems. Why?

I don't know,

the tab gets made first since it's mainly a straight piece.

A bead roll mimics the original

A hammer mimics the band.

Now, for the rest of the problem,

its last purpose on earth. A template,

you almost wanna leave it like this just to show off your skills.

This poorly patched B pillar is next. But before we can go any further, this warped rear deck has got to go. Now it's a major piece of bracing in the car. So in order to fix it, we've got to lose the

Clios and the rear quarters to weld the car together.

The same principle and welding applies here too,

spread them out evenly because too much heat in one place can screw up the metal.

Three hours later,

the car is solid. We're safe to open the deck panel and check out the brace.

And here's another place that could send you running. This brace is in bad need of repair but not like it was done before. Do you believe that somebody paid for this?

A little extra bracing

before we start the clean up?

There's a lot more mud than we thought.

In fact, it's the only thing connecting it to the brace.

I can't be too hard on the guy who made this mess. It could be, he had a rigid budget and a deadline to keep two things to live by. When you do this for a living,

I'll start with the lip. The rest will play off of it.

This corner is tricky but this shrinker should give me what I need.

Not quite the bends. Just not tight enough.

This tubing will create a better radius.

Too bad. I melted them together.

This one should or better be the one

and it would work

if it weren't backward.

I can see it in my head but my hands keep screwing it up and my ego meter is sinking fast.

It's probably a good time to take a break.

I know it is. For me,

we're back and I'm tackling some tough body work. I've never tried before.

This section was the worst,

but I impressed myself with my huge talent,

reality set in as a rather simple panel, slammed me down and spanked me hard 123 times. I was out.

The whole point of this show is trying something new and I think I've proven that screwing up is part of that. Now, I'd like to say that I did it on purpose,

but I didn't. But I think I got it after the fourth one.

The mistake I made was expecting too much from one piece. It's gonna take three.

The first one's part of the speaker deck which ties the brace to the pillar,

the pillar and window seat I made earlier was backwards. This one's correct.

I need a straight edge on the pillar

and, well,

ah,

success.

The third piece is odd,

but I'm a pro by now.

If I was doing this for a customer,

I wouldn't charge them for my failed attempts.

I couldn't rent cartoons for a week.

Finally, we can start fixing the brakes.

There's some odd bends here as well.

But compared to what we just went through,

no gray matter needed.

Plus no one's gonna see this one.

The point is to give it back strength,

we'll knock off the loose rust

which you don't want to inhale.

There's no need to grind it all out.

And here's why

rust breeds from hydrogen and oxygen. You take away one of those ingredients.

The recipe is void.

We got this from auto body supply. It's mainly used for chassis

and underbody protection.

Its chemical compound will prevent both elements from getting through perfect for spots like this.

After some drying time, the new rear deck panel can finally go on.

We've tackled some pretty tough repairs so far and there's one more left and I hope it's a lot easier than the B pillar. This area has been really weakened by rust and it has a lot of tough contours to deal with. So let's see how bad the damage is.

It's time to play. Plastic surgeon

lesson learned on the B pillar, multiple small parts.

Some guys spend their time on landscaping and hammocks, Mother nature and bug spray peanut butter and a poodle. Just give me some stock metal and something to fix and leave me alone.

This is my mental enema.

Using the junk as a template will speed things up a little bit,

but there's still a lot of tweaking and hammering to get it right.

Two pieces in

about six to come

by. Now, you got the point. Use whatever you got to mimic the bands. This old shot bag will help out on this one.

An old fruit cake will do the same

time for this spot. Three hours. That's how long it took Gilligan to wreck the minnow.

Well, all that's left is this last piece of window channel and all the major surgery is done. Can you do this at home? Well, yeah, if you have a cut off wheel, a welder, some tin sniffs of vice and lots of patients

that cutter and that slipper,

what do we use?

They're strictly luxuries. Use your imagination. Now, later on in the show, I found a way that you can braise those smaller rust holes at home in your garage. And if you don't know what braising is, you may want to stick around.

Flashback is next. And we got our hands on a one year wonder Mopar.

But by the way, this guy drives, you'd never guess only a handful were ever made.

This week's muscle car flashback, the 1970 Dodge, Challenger T A

in the late sixties, Trans Am racing was hot. Plymouth and Dodge were both starting to feel the heat

in 1970. Both of these Chrysler companies threw their hat into SCCA Racing

Plymouth with his A ARC

A

and Dodge with his challenger T A.

The quick and Nimble mo parts were designed to run against established

Mustang and Javelin race cars. Dodge made just enough tas available for sale in 1970 to qualify for the Trans Am series.

And then it was off to the races.

Bryce Sanderson got his hands on his T A back in 06 and the choice was easy for him

when I was a kid growing up. Uh We'd always go to the Hinkley Auto Show back in Utah and it's a big Mopar

little Mopar meeting in Utah and

there was a B five blue challenger there and I always liked it.

Dodge officially claimed that the T A 346 pack was a 290 horsepower plan,

but most Mopar guys will tell you it's closer to one pony for cubic in.

All that power flows through a three speed

horse

flight,

automatic

transmission

and a limited slip differential before hitting those 15 inch wheel.

A torsion bar front suspension gives this ride one nasty rake.

Speaking of nasty tas came, stopped with side megaphone exhaust,

letting the driver enjoy the rumble of that 340 as well as that guy. He just blew by in the slow lane,

the flat black hood came standard on all tas

and it kept the sun's glare out of the driver's eyes

pins, take place of the latches, keeping his fiberglass hood. True to its claim, lightweight.

This snorkel scoop was raised an inch off the hood for better air flow.

But at triple threat, a two barrel holly,

the middle carve is just for cruising.

But punch that throttle open up the two outboard

ends.

It's like dropping the hammer

and

it's all over from there. It's just the world becomes a blur. Heart starts pumping. It's a rush, classic Mopar body lines and this fat tape stripe with bold lettering boast his performance, a recess front grill and four headlights let you know it's a challenger from the front

while window Los

and a duck tail spoiler finish out the side more commonly seen

as fast as they were. They just couldn't hang with the mach one and Javelin on the track.

So Dodge hung up their racing and discontinued the T A making it a one year one,

less than 2500 tas were ever made.

But that doesn't keep price from putting this baby through its paces.

He knows it was built for one thing.

Race

stick around

more muscle cars right after the braid,

we're back and so far I've gained a new appreciation for body guys and gals,

but we're not done yet. Originally, this car had a vinyl top and it's covered with spots like this. It rusted from the outside in and there's no hidden weaknesses underneath.

It's not bad enough to cut out and replace. So we're going to fill it in

back when Kool Aid was made with sugar. All we had to work with was gas or arc welding. The problem was the heat would blow a bigger hole in your metal. So body shops would use a torch and they'd have a fill rod with brass and bronze mixed in it and they'd heat it up and fill the holes with it. Less heat, less warpage.

Modern welders, even pigs can still generate too much heat for spots like this.

You could use quick task.

But the old brass rod is still better. It has a lower melting point than the steel rods there. Again, less heat, less warpage.

You could use a torch with a braising tip, but a tig has a more pinpoint arc. Plus it's easier to control the heat.

It's always smart to cool things down as you go

take a look at how I see it through my mask.

The rod melts quickly so I move it over till the body gets hot enough to suck it in the hole.

Notice how quick it cools down.

Now, I'm not just reliving my childhood here. This really works and it's becoming so popular that these rods aren't hard to find. Now, we've got just enough time to back up and fix a problem that we showed you earlier.

They only make rear panels for the GTO,

not the basic lemon.

The taillights are different. We found some salvage yard buckets that are worthy of a new light

with some very precise marking and cutting.

This won't be too difficult. If we weren't lucky enough to find these hours would have been spent making them from scratch.

Some of you guys that are smarter than the average bear may have realized that these quarter panels are for a GTO as well. Now, we're gonna have to do some modifications in the back, but the biggest difference is here. Do you notice anything missing?

Come on, boo boo. Let's get with the program. It's Louvers, Louvers, the lemons came with Louvers.

We cut these from the original quarters because you can't buy them either.

We also measured their location using the door jams and the rockers.

Same theory as before. The better the cuts, the less fab work needed.

Don't forget that a little gap in between is needed to get a solid weld

if you paid a body shop to do all the work that you just learned how to do. I don't know if this project would be worth it. Now, we're just under the budget that we created for this car because as planned, we did all the metal work ourselves.

Now, if you paid attention today,

I'll mail you a diploma from Lou's School of Fab follies. Not only that

I'll throw in a box of band aids until then, stand by your mailbox later.