Builds New Mexico Pig Build (3 Viewers)

[abqcruiser]

Thanks to everyone.

Pablo, I'm good for right now. I know that probably isn't the right paint line as a stock pig, but I thought it would be better to wrap the darker color around all the way to the weatherstrip. Hopefully it will show less wear than having white, especially on the rockers.

Bob, I agree. Just don't retire anytime soon, or at least give me fair warning, so I can put my order in for rockers, body supports and panels.

 

[abqcruiser]

An update on the progress: I've been trying to get all my painting done before the weather gets too cold. I had a bit of body work to do on the hood and tailgate, played around with heat shrinking the metal on both to try and work some of the dents out. The hood was the worst, it looked like someone had sat right down in the middle of it. With the heat shrinking I was able to get it relatively flat a took some of the oil canning out of it. Not perfect, but I can live with it.

I had to do some body work on the upper fenders as well, but not too much. I ended up riveting the uppers and lowers together after priming and monstalining. I tried using a seam sealer in-between the panels, but I couldn't get a good finish, so I ended up digging it all out and using a heavy bodied epoxy adhesive that is used for joining door panels. My one worry is that it will start showing cracks as the panels flex and move.

 

[abqcruiser]

Here are a few more with the finished color.

So everything was going great until I tried to get the fenders and front doors to align. I've already shimmed the upper fenders bolts off the dog house by at least 3/8", but when I try to bolt the lower fender under the rocker panel, everything gets pulled down, creating a step in the paint line.

I'm thinking about cutting the rocker panel and welding a shoulder that will allow the lower fender to wrap around without touching the rockers. It's either that or separate the fenders and add a spacer between the two. Either way, I'll be repainting something. Any thoughts or ideas would be welcomed.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Good decision on mating the two fender halves together. I regret having the seam between mine. Can't help with the alignment, it kicked my azz. I do know, more problems showed up when I bolted up the hood and again when trying to bolt up the front valance.

I wish you all the patience I was lacking.

 

[abqcruiser]

Scrapdaddy, can you elaborate on the hood problem? I wondered if that would be my next can of worms. Right now there is a pretty good spread between the front valance and fenders. I'm hoping to get lucky with the alignment as I bolt them together.

 

[scrapdaddy]

I'll try. Driver's side fender to door gap was too large, but the fender to hood alignment ( in the front ) was off. The fender needed to be brought out some to match hood. The gap between the hood and cowl was perfect and the pass. side door to fender gap was good. No matter which way I went, something was out. Before it got fixed my way, took it to a body shop that deals with custom cars. Whatever he did, it turned out nice. Won't win any trophies, but good enough for Dittmer.

One more.. The hood wouldn't latch right, looked like the hood needed to be brought out to close right, which messed up all the other alignments. I adjusted the latch as much as possible, just wasn't enough.

 

[abqcruiser]

Well…damn! I guess I'm not going to be sleeping good tonight. That's a lot to consider. I'll have to mock everything up before I decide to do any cutting. Thanks for the heads up. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[abqcruiser]

After 2 weeks of re-working the fenders and rocker panels, I think I can move on to other things.

I shimmed the fenders up about 1/2" and moved the doors as far forward as possible. I also cut and re-welded the the rocker panels to accommodate the lower fender a little better. I have no physical reference to acceptable gaps between the fenders and doors. Mine ranges between 3/8" to 1/2" and still I had a slight rubbing between the driver's door and upper fender when fully open. Has anyone else measured theirs?. The doors are original to the body shell so I'm guessing that is just the way the tolerances were back then. Anyway, that is the extent of my skills, so time to move on.

I got lucky with the hood alignment, but the front valance was a real pain. There was a pretty good gap between the two fenders. So much so that I had to make some backing plates, for the two bolts on the fenders, to prevent them from pulling through the sheet metal as I bolted them up to the valance.

Next up is the dreaded tailgate.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Hey Abqcruiser,

Turned out nice. I'm with you on the tailgate. My two Sons are coming out to help with mine.

Good luck with it.

 

[PabloCruise]

Hang in there, the tailgate is a PITA, but at least it will line up easier!

 

[NikP]

Looking nice. I'm interested to hear on hood/door alignment. I hung my doors and they have the same paint chip. Good thing for me it was just primer and I haven't got to the paint stage.

Glad to hear how you tackled fenders and the upper apron. I'll probably copy your method. What was the epoxy sealer you used?

 

[abqcruiser]

Hey Nik, good luck! I hope your's goes easier. My first mistake was completely finishing the fenders prior to installing them. I did a brief test fit with them but without the doors on to check the tolerances. I also have limited space to paint so it was easier to finish the parts off the body. You are in a good spot if you are still in the primer stage. I would still join the upper and lower together first off, and then go from there. And from there I mean check everything, fenders, doors, front valance, and hood. Like scrapdaddy was saying, everything gets affected. The epoxy sealer I used was Evercoat Maxim multi-panel. It really isn't meant to be used as a seam sealer, it has no flexibility, but it is heavy bodied and sand able. It allowed me to get a smooth finish that I couldn't get with a seam sealer, but after manipulating the fenders to get the right fit, I did split the seams in a few places. If you do end up using the product, I would get everything fitted and bolted up, and then apply the epoxy. I think you will have much better results. Good luck.

 

[NikP]

Do you have any pictures of riveting your fenders together? I put a couple of rivets in mine to temporarily align them but I remember having trouble with the rivet and the inner fender of the engine compartment. I think I had to cut out an area for clearance in the inner for the tail of the rivet.

I thought at the time it's going to be tough getting the fender and apron together off the vehicle with new paint on them.

I guess I could remove the rivets before installation since the epoxy essentially glues it together. But maybe I'm missing something.


Nik

 

[abqcruiser]

I can't seem to find any pictures of the fenders riveted together, sorry. I did however use quite a few rivets to join the fenders together. I used them to keep the bolt holes on the uppers and lowers to align with the inner fender, also to minimize movement between the two fenders, and to keep the seam sealer from cracking. When I first joined the fenders together I had the rivets oriented the wrong way, which sounds like what happened to you. I ended up drilling them out and flipping them the other way. Their profile is pretty thin, less than 1/16", so it didn't affect anything with the inner fender. As for your thought on removing the rivets before installation, I would leave them. The old fenders that I pulled off were spot welded together in a few places, making it easier to handle during the install. All those bolt locations on the inner fender is acting like rivet points anyways. Btw, that epoxy recommends sanding off all paint to make a metal to metal bond. I wasn't willing to do that, mainly because that seems to be the point where these pigs start to show rust problems. I also had some pretty large gaps to fill, and from a glue stand point thinner is better.

 

[1973Guppie]

I am dreading aligning all the panels on my piggy, I may have to leave that to the paint shop......

 

[abqcruiser]

You might want to talk to scrapdaddy about that. Unless the paint shop is a good body shop as well, they may not have the skills or patience to do it. He took his somewhere else after the painting was done.

 

[OGBeno]

Beautiful work.

Nice job.

 

[1973Guppie]

thx for that tip, plan right now is to probably try to do it myself and have someone come out to take out the one corner dent, then roll on monstaliner on the whole rig, I don't want to spend a fortune on paint and body work, monstaliner is UV stable and looks good after application IMO, not going to be a show pig.....

 

[PabloCruise]

thx for that tip, plan right now is to probably try to do it myself and have someone come out to take out the one corner dent, then roll on monstaliner on the whole rig, I don't want to spend a fortune on paint and body work, monstaliner is UV stable and looks good after application IMO, not going to be a show pig.....

Yep, try messing with it when you have time to spare. Go slow and goof around with different ideas. If you wait until the last minute you will be frustrated...

 

[abqcruiser]

Amen to that!