Panel Beating Progress.

[Bill77]

Other projects around the house have prevented much progress on the Alfa since summertime, but it's time to get at it once again.

The upper nose cone needed to be straightened. Some of you recommended using the old fashioned hammers and dollies instead of replacing the panel. It is working fine and here is the progress so far.

Before:

[Bill77]

Here is how it looks now:

[Bill77]

It still needs more work. The vertical 1" wall on the front edge doesn't maintain the correct angle across the nose. The surface isn't quite perfect, but close enough for a thin skim coat of filler. I still need to weld up the holes left by the Errant Dent Puller from PO days.

[Bill77]

Also, the car will be wearing the stainless steel bumpers and the Alfa heart-shaped grille, making it look like an early seventies car. Trouble is, the grille doesn't fit very well. The upper nose cone is about 1/4" to the right of the lower nose cone. This wasn't noticeable with the federal bumpers, but the new (old) grille won't line up. I've tried to coax the upper nose to one side and the lower nose cone to the other side, but couldn't get much movement. I might cut out the little notch in the upper nose cone and weld it back on aligned for the grille. This little problem is something to consider if you're thinking about converting your rubber-bumpered Series 2 to stainless bumpers. Unless your sheetmetal is perfect, this is probably a job to tackle when addiitional paint and bodywork is planned. I've been banging the metal around quite a bit to make everything fit.

[Bill77]

The bumper conversion kit from Spiderpoint is ok, but the brackets to support the front bumpers are skimpy. They are the gold pieces seen in the photo, above. They can easily be bent by hand and wouldn't offer the least amount of body protection in a parking lot incident. I might weld on some gussets after everything is aligned and adjusted to fit.

[Bill77]

The car will also need a patch panel on the rear quarter, due to a fender bender. The door has already been replaced, thanks to a fellow BB'er. The quarter panel and the B-pillar sheetmetal are damaged. The quarter panels are readily available, but I haven't seen B-pillars. Another approach would be to straighten the metal as best I can, then fashion a patch panel from sheet stock. The weld flange area just inside of the door opening will be the toughest to get right, since this sets the door gap.

[Bill77]

This photo shows where the drain hoses should be located. The big hose from immediately above should go into the big hole, and the smaller hose from the rear trough should go into the small hole.

[Bill77]

Here's a better shot of the distorted B-pillar sheetmetal. That rusty metal is the flange off the B-pillar. It was cut in two places by the previous repair done sometime in the past.

[Bill77]

I will need to drill out the spot welds where the quarter panel flange is welded to the B-pillar sheetmetal. Once the quarter panel metal is removed, the B-pillar metal will be more accessible to straighten. I tried to straighten this area from the backside, but accessibility is tough and I started to cause collateral damage.

[Bill77]

It was terrific to get back in the garage today and work on the car. I'll bore you all some more as work continues.....

[Bill77]

Oh, one more thing: I was surprised to see that the rocker inner and the other hidden reinforcements were painted or coated black. I was expecting to find bare, uncoated metal as was found in other areas of the body. Alfa made some efforts to prevent rust after all.

[PSk]

Excellent work Bill. The hammer and dolly does work ... I think it takes too long for most impatient modern people .

This is how they used to do it and how they used to make Ferraris (and very early Alfa Romeos) ... so it does work.

Pete

[PSk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill77 Oh, one more thing: I was surprised to see that the rocker inner and the other hidden reinforcements were painted or coated black. I was expecting to find bare, uncoated metal as was found in other areas of the body. Alfa made some efforts to prevent rust after all.

[Bill77]

I'll have to poke around with the dental mirror and see how other areas of the car were treated. The car has blackout paint sprayed at the seat tracks, the windshield posts, under the instrument panel and along the drain troughs just aft of the B-pillar. Maybe the inner panels were sprayed during subassembly of the body panels. Has anyone else seen this on a mid to late seventies Alfa? Replacing the rocker inner and the vertical B-pillar reinforcement would be major surgery and there doesn't appear to be any evidence of that. But it is possible.....

[rmatteo]

Bill, just curious, but what was the reason behind fixing the panel instead of just welding a new one in? Someone backed into my Spider and left a softball sized dent in the nose just above the bumper. I was thinking it would be easiest to just replace the panel, but now you've got me thinking I might be able to remove the bumper and work it out. Great job by the way!