Barry, its nice to see your garage a mess (like mine). After all of your trailer pictures, I was afraid that you didn’t know how a real garage looked!

The garage was a total mess during the whole trailer project. It was just so big you couldn't see the mess.

Cleanliness in not my long suit. My one year stint in military school was the only time in my life that I didn't have someone to clean up after me.

11-25-2007 Might as well go all the way.





If anyone is going to rebuild one of these there is a simple production mistake that can be corrected. Wherever there was a seam sealant was used over bare metal it failed. Wherever it was applied over paint there was no failure. I believe that the edge of the sealant cracked the paint allowing, oxygen and moisture to cause rust under the caulk. I would advise priming at least before caulking.

Have you decided on what kind and brand of paint that you are going to use?

No idea, yet. Too soon to think about it. I'm only half finished stripping the car. probably find some more surprises along the way.

Barry
That's interesting about the caulk. I don't think primer is a very good sealer, though. I would think about doing the caulking after using a primer sealer rather than just the primer, or maybe after the first coat of paint has been applied.
I'd also be interested in hearing from other restorers on what is the preferred method.

What a neat project! I'm curious, Barry- is there any evidence who built the car? Is it a Lehmann-Peterson???

Looks like it's coming along nicely. Good Luck with it-

Chuck

Actually, I hope it's not an LP since I want to redo the interior for my tastes, not someone's else's idea of 1968 luxury.

11-26-2007 Dogleg repair. I don't believe there was ever a slabside Lincoln that didn't need this repair. I got off very lucky.

I started cutting away metal where I knew I had a problem. I was not surprised to see what I found. This is simply an accumulation of rust flakes and dirt. The leaks from the trim holes above kept this area damp at all times as the rust flakes acted as a sponge.





Scraped away as much as I could and determined that the damaged area was larger, but not bad. The metal on both sides was still substantial.



I fabricated a patch panel that fits in behind the metal edges. I believe I'm going to make all of my repairs and bring in a welder who did some great welding on the trailer. I'm pretty good with heavier gauge metal. Sheet metal is pretty touchy.



This rust is an example of poor engineering. There were no drain holes and the seam sealer acted as a water trap. The rusted metal will be top-coated with POR-15 (Paint Over Rust). I don't like the idea of media blasting as much of it would be trapped in the unibody structure.

12-3-2007 Passenger front door. Just a light dent in the lower right and a couple of small dimples. Otherwise perfect.



Bad planning. This is the front door post area. This valley has no drainage. It has collected moisture for a very long time resulting in a rust-through. For those of you with this vintage car it might be worth removing the lower decorative shield to see what's going on. Not sure what to do about this.





Concerned that there was damage to the front fender in this area I stripped off the paint. I was very pleased to find a nearly flawless front fender. They shoud have made this car in stainless.

12-7-2007 There was 8 pounds of paint on the hood. I used 2 gallons of stripper and wore out a stainless brush. Took me 4 afternoons to complete. No rust.

There was something different about the paint on the hood of this car. It was like iron. For some reason the hood had a dark gray primer while the rest of the car has red oxide. While the paint on the rest of the car literally falls off when the stripper is applied the paint on the hood appeared to be baked on. It probably was.

12-9-2007 Driver's side front fender.

Found the entire fender covered in body filler. Rather than bring the metal back to it's original position they laid up a 1/4" layer of bondo. I certainly expected to find some major damaged underneath.



Not so. Looks like there was a minor fender bender that was poorly bumped out. A couple of hours with dolly and hammer and this fender will be ready for a thin skim coat of filler. No rust.

Impressive documentation and great photos and commentary. Good job, Barry.

Hey Barry. I was wondering if the car had two zip codes also.

Don't know if there are seperate zip codes, but the intercom has two area codes!

12-13-2007 POR-15

Earlier, I reported that his car might have been virtually rust free had it not been for the sealant they used on most of the seams. They used two kinds. One was more of a filler and was porous, absorbing moisture but keeping it from passing through the seams. The other sealant was some type of silicone or rubber that was applied to raw steel.

This elastic sealant failed everywhere, causing water to be trapped underneath it.

I am going to remove all traces of remaining sealant and replace it with POR-15 (Paint Over Rust), specially formulated to neutralize rust and seal off future rust by eliminating oxygen from getting to the metal.



The POR-15 instructions call for degreasing of the metal surface. The degreaser should be mixed in a maximum 1:1 with hot water and weaker solutions up to 5:1. All of the areas to receive paint were treated with the degreaser, wiped off and allowed to dry.



Step 2 is to apply a rust neutralizer. The instructions say to keep the areas wet with the neutralizer for 15 minutes before allowing solution to air dry.



Step 3 is to apply the paint. I chose the silver paint because it has much more solids than their black paint allowing it to be used as a filler for small gaps and holes.



This step marks the beginning of refinishing the car as I've now stripped paint off of most areas.



In the instructions for the POR-15 it recommends that you paint both sides of any rusted metal. As a precaution I've painted the lowest level of the inside of the doors. There is an existing sealant that I couldn't remove in this area so I painted over it, giving water a clear pathway to the ample drain holes.

Note: the coarse material above the paint is sound deadener.

12-16-2007 Drain holes.

If you look at the angle of the bottom of the door you can see a downward slope towards the outer edge of the door.



Water seeks the lowest point which you can see with a straight edge in place. The only way these doors would rust is if the drain holes get plugged. It would probably take an hour a door to disassemble the arm rest and door panel but it would be worth vacuuming out any built up crud. new felts and rubber at the window should ward off future crud build-up.



Went back to work on repairing some rust damage.



Using the material I had bent I fit the pieces using the cut-out and paper templates. The side piece is straight but the original bottom piece has a slight curve to it. I'll duplicate that curve in lead or body filler.



The tail light area was covered in a different type of body sealer. It was very rigid and stuck to the raw steel very well. I removed it anyway in favor of a coat of POR-15. I'm starting to sound like a commercial.



Painted all areas except the body surface. The paint filled some small pinholes but not all the damage. The rust is encapsulated. The small holes will be sealed with body filler and another coat of paint.

12-19-2007 Brazing rear window opening.

This area was the very worst rust damage. I took a die grinder to all of the holes and opened them up until there was substantial metal at the edge. I installed a backer that also covered the worst of the rust holes. I also ground to fresh metal where all of the original spot welds were so that the brazing would have a solid base.



Using a very small flame I spot brazed the backer in place. The slot allows for the vertical piece to fit. The backers were temporarily screwed in place. Those holes were welded shut.



Spot welding the patch panel in place keeps the sheet metal from warping. I found that the spot weld areas needed a hole in the underlaying metal so that both layers heated properly.



Brazing finished, ready for grinding and a top coat of POR-15.



I decided to strip all of the paint, even from the area behind the bumper. What's another hour or two? I found that the main bumper support was a substantial piece of galvanized steel.



All areas that are rust prone will get a coat or two of POR-15



You'll note that I installed the new pieces slightly below that of the original so that there will be minimal filling necessary.



A little bumpy but body filler will smooth this area nicely. Next step is to assemble the window trim and determine the proper curve to the body filler.

12-25-2007

Paint nor bondo stick easily to POR-15 but their super-bondo does. After painting the highly distressed area and letting it dry I applied a layer of their body filler over the whole area and sanded away all the high spots leaving the filler and encapsulated rust covered by paint and their bondo. They say that it's 5 times as hard as standard body filler. It's reinforced with glass fibers.

I fitted the window trim to act as a guide to the application of a coat of body filler. You can see the gap I need to fill to match the original opening.





The patched area got a base coat of bondo, Thin layers of build-up are better than gobbing on filler.



After getting the patched areas to line up with the window trim I shot a layer of primer over the bondo to protect the freshly sanded metal. This layer of paint, when block sanded, will reveal further neecessary work.



After block sanding the sides I applied a thin layer of bondo over the rest of the lower panel.

I was careful to keep the layer thin so that the curvature would be maintained. After it hardened I started hand sanding but all of my sponges or sanding blocks only made contact at their outer edges.



I resolved that problem by making my own sanding drum. I used 3M adhesive on the tube and back of the paper. It took a couple of attempts to get proper positioning but it produced a very effective sanding tool. I sanded lengthwise while moving the sanding tube in a cross-hatch pattern





A coat of primer to protect what I'd completed.



After it dried it looked flat and straight. I went on to the next task. The rust at the top of the window fooled me. I thought it was just surface rust but it was some serious damage. Apparently there had been a sealant installed but none of it got behind the trim clips. Each clip became a water trap and this is the result.



I used a die grinder with wire brush and holes started to appear. A burr revealed the extent of the damage.



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The super-bondo instructions said that it required a backer but there was no way to install one in this location. A different approach was required. I decided to fill the cavity behind the damage with expanding foam. It will cut off all oxygen to the back side of the metal and it will act as a backer for the filler. I'll be making a small recess behind the metal edge so the filler will encapsulate the rust.

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Next up is to clean the inside lip of the trunk lid and give it a coat of paint. I'll then reinstall it and fill the antenna holes. Then the sail panel repairs. I've got an idea what I want to do there.

12-27-2007

Wire brushed off as much of the rust as I could get off, degreased and painted the areas of the trunk that are exposed to moisture. Unpainted areas are inside the trunk and will just get primer and paint.



After two hours of tedious die grinding I sanded about four square feet of the roof
to remove any burrs. I found that the rust spots had a slight rise to them that wouldn't go away with sanding. The iron oxide was harder than the sandpaper grit but not the carbide burr.

I meticulously ground away as many rust spots as I could see. These left depressions that often still had a slight rust deposit at the bottom of the pit. After grinding I used the POR-15 neutralizer and rinsed with water as instructed. I towel dried the surface, allowed it to dry totally and painted on a thick coat of POR-15 over the entire area.





I sanded away the entire coat leaving each divot filled with POR-15 sealing the rust off for eternity, or so they say.



The product on the left is the fiberglass reinforced filler designed specifically to fill large holes. I used that to fill the rust holes in the window frame. This stuff sets up very fast (5 minutes) and is hard as nails. There's a 10 minute work window for final shaving or shaping, but that's about it.

The product on the right is their super fine body filler. It spreads like the consistency of butter.



This is the hole filler, shaped on the left and unworked on the right.



I used the fine filler on all of the divots and sanded it away leaving the roof extremely smooth.



I top coated the sanded metal with red oxide primer which will probably be sanded off by the painter. I started to reinstall the trunk lid to check the fit and to weld up the antenna hole in the trunk lid. I may leave it and install another type of antenna there.



Before and after left side.





Before and after, right side

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Hi Barry. I want to thank you for the work you've put into this thread. It is informative and fun to watch what you're doing here. I do have one question.

When you were fixing the areas on the bottom of the windows you mentioned both welding the backing plate and brazing too. Are you using these terms interchangeably, or are you mixing welding and brazing on the same area?

If really brazing, I had heard that this was a bad area to do that due to inconsistent expansion qualities between the weld and the braze material. I don't know if that is true or not but I wonder if you have any comment on that.

I did experience some of that but knowing that body filler was inevitable it was a simple matter of knocking down the high spots. I did find that a very small tip and very thin brazing rod kept the distortion to a minimum.

I am curious as to how the factory brazed the panels together so nicely. I could detect filled in jig holes but the seam at the roof and sail panel is quite wide, but perfect. What's really odd is that the bronze seam attracts metal shavings like a magnet, even through the primer.

You can see the brazed seam in this picture.

As an aside. The thickness of the material I was brazing together was the same thickness so I didn't have some of the problems you mentioned. That's why I had to drill holes in my "spot" welds. I was able to get the metals to heat evenly that way.

12-31-2007

This is what I started with. The padded vinyl top had split and water sought the lowest level and was trapped by the rear moldings. The problem was compounded by caulking the bottom of the trim.



About two hours of die grinder work and I had removed all traces of rust on the surface. There was still some rust at the bottom of the deep pits. I ground away all the thin metal, requiring some extensive patches.



I gave the area a heavy coat of POR-15 and let it cure overnight.



I made some backers out of stainless steel and secured them with screws. I intentionally left a 1/4" gap in-between the backer and the finished surface.



I mixed a batch of the fiberglass reinforced filler and pushed it into the intentional gap and tightened the screws, compressing the filler behind the patch.



After the filler set up I removed the screws and filled the holes.



I used the fine paste to fill the divots left after sanding off the top coat of POR-15. I topped that with bondo as necessary and sanded the area smooth.



Before and after

Peter
Is that a photo of you as you realized that your King Midget wasn't going to be done in time for the national meet this year?
Or is that a photo of you when you realized how little work has been accomplished on it in the last year?