I spent a few hours yesterday and today on the so-called ‘final’ body issues with the TI. Of the things I need to do before sending the car off for interior and exterior finishing work, I’m down to just three or four, namely:

1. getting some bondo on the exterior pieces that I’ve replaced
2. sanding and prepping the body as much as I can stand
3. re-installing the dash and gauge cluster
4. re-installing a driver seat so I can actually get the car to the various shops.

That should be a day’s work but I suspect it’ll take two or three.

Yesterday I addressed the front valence of the car, and the radiator support (again). The valence had already been ‘repaired’ at least once, and the bondo was 1/2 inch thick in some places. Bleh. I decided to cut out a bunch more of the old metal (and aforementioned bondo) in order to do a better repair and have a more regular shape to work with.

I did an ok job measuring and shaping the new metal. Basically it just needed to fold under the rad support so exactitude was not required. Here’s the patch before I started snipping and grinding on it to fit better.

Getting the patch in went well enough. I had a little mis-calculation on the driver side but just welded in a little triangular piece to make up the difference. The less impressive part was at the end: I’d left an inch or two of extra metal under the car, figuring I’d just buzz it off with the grinder once I was done with the welding. I should have gotten a straight edge of some kind and drawn an actual line. Instead, I just eyeballed it and ended up with a fairly pathetic sine wave. Luckily, this doesn’t show unless you’re under the car. I suppose I could trim it back to a straight line, but that would mean sacrificing some of the coverage the metal is providing, so at this point I’m leaving good enough alone. And here’s good enough:

And that was yesterday. Not much accomplished, but I was tired and dammit the days are getting shorter.

Today my goal was to use something made by the Bondo company. I was hesitant, so I spent a couple hours going to Harbor Freight first. That place is like Target for the DIY crowd. I went because I had a 20%-off coupon and wanted to buy a hammer and dolly set ($24.99); by the time I walked out I was down $97.

Anyway, I had a few things to do first. I wanted to get the jack points reinstalled, if for no other reason than correct appearance. I don’t know if anyone uses the Alfa-supplied jack, and even then I’m not sure these jack points are up for the task.

I started with the driver side, but of course once I was on my back on my dirty driveway I got distracted by the crud at the bottom of the rocker panel that I had been doing my best to ignore. I buzzed it off with the grinder and of course a bunch of rust fell out. Sigh. Add another hour to today’s log sheet.

So, I cut out the worst of the rusty metal, fitted a replacement patch, and got it welded in. Then I got to the jack point. I cleaned it up with the grinder and banged around on it with a hammer until it fit reasonably well, and welded it in. Results here:

On the right side, and for the same reasons, the fit was terrible so I had to cut out a bunch of metal from the jack point in order to get it in. Somehow while welding this piece in a spark (aka a burning piece of molten steel) landed in my throat (!). Ouch. It still hurts. I have no idea how it got there. I’m pretty sure my mouth was closed, and it’s hard to imagine a burning ember going through the nose all the way to the throat without hitting an obstacle or two en route. Maybe it was a magic ember, but I’m really hoping this isn’t one of those things that turns into a chronic illness or uncanny ability to predict rain.

Anyway, here’s the right side:

Finally, as promised, broke out the Bondo fiberglass. This stuff smelled great. I wish I was kidding, because I’m sure it”s bad for my health, but I have to say I liked it. Like the smell of burning metal, this smell makes you feel like you’re really accomplishing something.

In less than an hour I’d covered (from behind) all the holes along the perimiter, ie the trunk and all doors. It took a while getting the mixture proportion correct (I’m sure I’m still doing it wrong) but I was impressed by how strong the new material is. Plastics, indeed. Sorry, no photos of this phase.

Next is actual Bondo filler applied on the outside, hopefully tomorrow but definitely soon. The goal is to take this car to the 2009 All-Italian Day in Alameda. It might be in primer, or worse, but whatever — better than last year.

Posted Sunday, September 20th, 2009 at 6:01 pm. Filed under 1966 Giulia TI, Alfa Romeo, Body Work. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or Trackback from your own site.