1966 Valiant for the Other Daughter....

JimKueneman

Mopar Nut
She has fallen for these little Valiants.. and this one especially for some reason. It was hit in the RR corner so this will be taking my skills to a new level. Also the ladies kids hacked out the wheel lips and had 12" shackles for HUGE tires on back in the day so it needs metal but that came with it. My buddy who we got the Duster from sold the guy all the metal before I bought it. Small Mopar community in the Tucson area....

After 3 cars I have tried everything. Now that you can't get good Aircraft Stripper anymore there is nothing that works better than these cookies on a 90 degree grinder. Cleaned up the donor parts to see if there were any surprises. The one had a little damage near the bumper but now that the parts of off that can be dollied back much closer. I am done with time sandblasting. If I does not fit in the cabinet and it is portable it is going to the shop in Whetstone to be blasted. They get $90 an hour but if I do this much and only have them do the complex corner areas and get the rust area 100% clean (enforcing they stay away from the the main panel area so they don't warp it) I am going to bet I can get most of my heaving blasting done very reasonable. We will see with this first batch of parts.

Oh and there is no question that the patch panels for the Darts will give you most of the metal you need for this Valliant. I think the shapes are exactly the same below the Dart body line that parallels the arch and then runs back to the top of the bumper.

Looks like @Barry should book a trip to the Bahamas as my money soon be filling his pockets again....

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I'm looking forward to watching this one...You do such a great job on both the cars and the threads. So is the plan to do full quarters below the body line?
 
Ok day 2 of restoration.... I bought some silicone off eBay this week and soaked the rear gasket for the last 3 days in the sun. The rear glass is one year only and no one makes glass or seals, had to save both... very very carefully worked it loose with Steele Rubber plastic bones and out she came without incident. I took out the wooden block spaced buckets and pulled the carpet. Man too bad she has that rear quarter damage, if that was not a big job this would be an easy few months to get it ready for paint... Tomorrow will work cleaning out the trunk and start drilling out welds to get the rear end parts off.

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Jim, for your replacement quarter panels, (if the upper edge is not useable) if you can cut the seam in the low area at the top (center of the concave shape) as shown by the red line below, that should be the optimal location to limit any weld distortion. The front to rear crown when shrinking occurs will tend to pull inward. The vertical crown of the concave shape will tend to pull outward, so the two should largely negate each other for minimal distortion. Looks like a nice solid project!!



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Sigh.... figures...

What is the definition of depression? When you plan out where you are going to graft in your quarter panel and you get it all cut out and you realize that this was the SECOND accident this car has been in.... with the previous repair an old school overlap and braze... can't leave that so kept hacking... now I find the patches don't have all the metal I need so do it in one shot so there is more fab work I have to do.... sigh.... oh well there was a reason my sensitive kid was drawn to this car, it has had a rough life and she feels for it I guess. We will bring it back to its former glory.. Man they hacked a lot out of that wheel opening for the fatty tires... Can't wait for the lift to go in Friday so I can get out of the sun...

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Can you get to the back side to planish?

not really. it will be tough to get in if I just clean up that hacked edge and try to graft it there. You can see how warped the original panel is where it was overlapped and brazed..
 
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How far up does the replacement go? It looks like the side window portion is intact on the new one.
 
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