When your fabrication and welding skills start to progress you’ll get to a point where not much scares you as far as repair goes. Whether it’s rust or just old body damage anything can be fixed with enough time and skills. Over the past few years I’ve started to get myself to that point where I often have to approach a rusty panel with the question “Is it worth my time to fix it?”. The answer can differ for many reasons. Is the panel easily available aftermarket or good used? How expensive are the panels? How soon do I need it versus how long it takes to get a replacement part?
Tag: Restoration
Top 5 Ways to remove Rust
Rust is something that’s hard to get away from, even in the driest climates, so type of rust still can occur. Removing rust can be VERY difficult and we decided break down our top five methods for removing it from metal. Some of these methods are cheap and quick, while others require some investment, but will reusable.
How to Fabricate a Cowl Panel From Scratch
I somehow ended up with this ’29 Model A Roadster carcass I want to build a little replica-racer out of. It was cheap, the bones were there and I figured I could build it up when I found some non-existent free time. I’m a little stubborn and although I could buy an entire new steel replica body, or all of the panels new to make this car all solid again, I’d rather build the panels I need from scratch and bring a close to 90-year old car back from the dead for very little money out of my pocket. I decided I wanted to start in the front of the body and work my way back. The side cowl panels are almost ALWAYS rotted out on the bottom of these cars and after I looked at the remains of the originals I decided I could easily tackle making new panels for only a few bucks in sheet metal.
Top 5 Reasons You Need a Heat Gun
A heat gun is one of those items that many garages are missing. Once you have one around the shop you’d be surprised how often they come in handy! We decided to put together a short list of our favorite uses
Which Seam Sealer and When to use
Just like when priming and painting your car there are a lot of choices when it comes to picking a seam sealer when refinishing or repairing your project. Seam sealer is made to cover and seal areas where panels may have been welded or overlapped. It will keep the seam from getting moisture in between panels and rusting out. As long as you use the correct seam sealer and prepared the panel correctly it will last the lifetime of the vehicle. We decided to cover the seam sealers that we offer and their best applications.
Tips to Making Custom Floor Pans for your Car
Mark recently decided to take on a resto-mod oddball in a Chevy Corvair. This neglected Chevy bastard-child was rescued from a local scrap yard and had seen some questionable repairs and better days. His first step in the rebuild of the car was getting the structure of the car rebuilt and solid before he started customizing the car. The first area of concern was the floor; or lack of it.
Hands on Cars Episode 1- How to Inspect and Evaluate a Project Car
The first episode of Hand on Cars, from Eastwood and Kevin Tetz, body work expert, paint wizard and all around car guy. In the first episode Kevin takes you through the process of inspecting a prospective project car before buying it. The car in question? One of the nearly quarter million 1978 Camaros Chevy built, but this one is a Z28 which makes it one of only about 50,000.
How To Retrofit Modern Gauges in Your Classic
A retro looking dash for a 60’s Chevy truck will cost you about $400+, that’s a lot to spend on just the dash. Depending on your gauge layout there is another affordable option that will not only retain a classic original look, it will also allow the use of modern gauges. In this article I’ll show you how to retrofit modern gauges into an original cluster by only making a few minor modifications to the factory hardware.
Selecting the Right Air Compressor
An air compressors is a tool, specifically it is a tool to run other tools, unless you just need a volume of air compressed for a SCUBA tank or to inflate a tire. What sort and how big of a compressor you need is going to depend a lot on what sort of tools you need to run with it. A body shop running DA sanders and a paint booth all day long needs a much more robust compressor than an engine shop running impact guns and occasionally a media blast booth.