Roof Rot?

[Donny]

Sadly, we are hitting that point where of course the roof skin may be rotted -- and the decision may be made to keep the skin as it's 'good', but, I'm finding major inner structure rot on many E Body cars. This is not surprising as these cars are coming up on being 50 yr old survivors! So, I tell all my customers that this is not uncommon now to see this massive inner structure rot. Sadly, this sort of news can break you from this hobby as the costs just went up a few notches more. However, this is the reality we face. I'm deep in a 70 Challenger with abnormal Roof structure damages from Goats pissing on it for years and DEA cutting it apart to locate the drugs. My own personal 70 Challenger will have similar problems, and I'm not even going to attempt to 'save' the roof skin -- buying new.

 

[Adam]

I replaced mine because it had numerous dents and was very rusty on the bottom/interior... actually not too bad of a job if you have a quality spot weld cutter. I believe I had the old skin off in a single afternoon. I used an AMD roof skin and it was nearly perfect. A potential problem arises with the trim clips as replacement glass is thinner, so measure carefully, and mock it up to be sure.

 

[budascuda]

Yes, I had the same problem. It is a common problem it seems, what is not so common is a donor car that has a good roof and inner structure!. However, I lucked out and found such a wreck. The best part was that one of the members (joel, was very kind to cut and send the chunks to me by mail) had patch sail panels that allowed me to do a re&re with all original sheet metal. I went from despair to giddy in a jiffy.
It was a lot of work, man alive, It was a lot of work, but less work than starting from scratch and making up a new roof with all new components.
my son and I couldn't just loose one of our challengers to rott or lazyness. It's amazing (and scary) how we can dream of something and it materializes seemingly out of thin air.
Good luck with your task.

 

[racerkilla]

I replaced mine because it had numerous dents and was very rusty on the bottom/interior... actually not too bad of a job if you have a quality spot weld cutter. I believe I had the old skin off in a single afternoon. I used an AMD roof skin and it was nearly perfect. A potential problem arises with the trim clips as replacement glass is thinner, so measure carefully, and mock it up to be sure.

I just went through putting new clips. I just keep them all the way down touching the window channel. The new glass I used was much thinner but using 3/8 butyl tape set the glass right on for the trim. The extra height over the 5/16 butyl helped.

 

[Donny]

Here's some before, during, and now (after) as lead pictures with new Roof braces installed.

 

[Donny]

The pink paper is the templating for new metal coupons, which I've made. Here's a few pics. This is a labor intensive process to make this stuff by hand with compound bends and curves so had to make multiple smaller pieces and fit them all together. I used some red rattle can primer to 'hold' rust until all were built and installed, then re media blasted the entire vehicle where and as needed.

 

[moparlee]

Nice work Donny! That's some pretty nasty before pictures followed by some major surgery. Maybe someday AMD will re-pop some those inner structure pieces.

 

[Donny]

DynCorn makes the entire section which is probably the way to go but those parts always are critical on alignment after the fact of installation. But thanks! I'm getting LOTS of rust repair surgery lately!

 

[moparlee]

BTW, how is Harvey treating you down there? Hope everything is ok for you.

 

[budascuda]

The pink paper is the templating for new metal coupons, which I've made. Here's a few pics. This is a labor intensive process to make this stuff by hand with compound bends and curves so had to make multiple smaller pieces and fit them all together. I used some red rattle can primer to 'hold' rust until all were built and installed, then re media blasted the entire vehicle where and as needed.

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Very nice, you must love what you do, it shows!

The pink paper is the templating for new metal coupons, which I've made. Here's a few pics. This is a labor intensive process to make this stuff by hand with compound bends and curves so had to make multiple smaller pieces and fit them all together. I used some red rattle can primer to 'hold' rust until all were built and installed, then re media blasted the entire vehicle where and as needed.

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[Donny]

Harvey is bringing a lot of rain to San Antonio area, but, our fellow citizens in Houston are getting hammered - hard! I've got a friend who is giving me updates every few hours -- soon she and her family are going to be abandoning their home due to flooding! It's really really bad!

 

[fk5aar]

Looking great Donny, I figured the goats would have kept the rain off the roof and the piss would just strip the paint off nicely lol.... good work btw on saving another one and yes the cost restore most of them is more than there worth, oh well

 

[Donny]

To compound this repair, (this is James' car btw...he has a thread here My Car My Way on this very car) is this Roof has been hacked apart and basically removed before by DEA goons searching for drugs when this car was a mule. So, there is a lot of activity going on! The A Pillars were not correct, than goodness I have my Challenger here to template off from. See today's progress here: DrBlast (specializing in plastic media blasting)

 

[jeff968]

I've done two e-body roof replacements and as others have said, it is not that bad. Just a lot of spot welds to drill. My under structures have been good.

 

[Donny]

I always media blast the inner structures on these multi tiered jobs; the initial media blast makes the roof skin worthless - not from the blasting process but the process finds the rot and decay. Customer then hires me to do the metalwork, cancerous metal removed and then second blast then epoxy. Install the new metal and reblast the entire car to clean the welds, the oils and greases (cutting bit oil, nozzle dip), various 'hold' rattle can primers, and reprime in epoxy again.

Here's a prime example of this multi tiered process: 1969 Camaro. New roof, Qtrs, Wheelhouses, Firewall, Floor, center trunk floor section, Tail panel, and shaved roof drip rail which I did in conjunction with the Roof skin replacement.

 

[Donny]

 

[moparlee]

Thanks for posting this Donny. Tremendous amount of work and skill going on there. I wouldn't even want to guess how many hours you will have just in that roof work.