The Camaro Club (UK)

Thanks Nige,
It was that thread that actually inspired me a few weeks to learn about lead loading. As i've spoken to people since then about it, it seems to be proper & respectable way of doing repairs. You seem to have it down to a T sir, i'll let you know how i get on with it
Thanks for offering advice, any info from someone of your experience is always much appreciated. I didn't buy the book no, though thinking about it i should have though I have been researching on the net and it seems to make sense, we hope! Bought it from frosts indeed, pretty decent price and quick delivery. My only 2 questions at this point i guess are, can i use the welding gas bottle i have (20% c02 80% argon) to supply the heat, or should i just stick with regular blow torch? and also i've read you need to heat up the tallow so it's molten, i was just going to heat this up in the plastic tub that it came in... would this be correct? Oh and lastly, at what point is usually the crossover of sheet metal being placed in versus lead loading a hole. the holes vary in size, some are the width of a regular philips head screwdriver, some slightly larger than a thumb print. Previous owners had used body filler to fill the thumb sized holes, so i wonder if lead solder would work over the same area?

Looking at the dent again, there have been some small screw holes drilled, cant beleive ive never seem them till today! so i will see how i get on with pulling the dents, otherwise i looked at how the rocker panel (as its officially called, learnt that yesterday ) comes off and i can see it some places where it joins the metal, i guess i will just have to pry apart the sheet metal at these spots, if anyone knows?

Thanks!!

Ray

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Hi Ray, your'e not going to be able to use the CO2/Argon gas as it's an inert gas that's used to shield the weld when electric welding, ie it won't burn the blow torch should be fine, just try to keep the heat to a minimum ie don't turn the gas on "full tilt" as the heat generated could distort a flat panel if too much is applied. Just try to apply the heat to the lead stick rather than keep it concentrated on the body panel. I tend to try to push the lead stick onto the panel whilst melting the tip of it at the same time,( if you do it like this then the flux on the panel starts to become molten from the heat anyway, which will allow the lead to flow once melted). A bit of practice & you'll get the hang of it I'm sure.


I generally don't tend to heat up the tallow, I just "wipe" the tallow with the wooden paddle a few times until there's a light coating on it. As work progresses the paddle gets warm anyway, so just "smooth" it in the tallow frequently & you should be fine.

The hardest part of filling a large hole is stopping the lead from falling through it. Generally you can fill a hole if it's around the width of the lead stick, ie if you can place the end of the lead stick over the hole you'll be ok. Bigger than this & you'll start having difficulties. That's not to say it can't be done, but it takes a bit more time & practice. Remember that you'll need to tap the surrounding area around the hole down below the metal surface with a hammer to allow the lead to "fill" the dent created & the hole. If the hole is too large just weld some metal into it & then lead over that repair (remembering to tap the metal repair lower than the metal surface).

You say, quote-: "otherwise i looked at how the rocker panel (as its officially called, learnt that yesterday ) comes off and i can see it some places where it joins the metal, i guess i will just have to pry apart the sheet metal at these spots,"

I don't fully understand what you're trying to say here. The outer sill or rocker panel is spot welded to the main structure of the car (the spot welds are the little dimples you can see in the metal as intervals every few inches). You need to drill out the spot welds (preferably with a spot weld remover drill bit) & then chisel in between them to seperate the different layers of metal. Once seperated you'll need to hammer/dolly the remaining metal to get it smooth again, then grind it down to allow a good fit of the new panel.

To be honest it's all common sense really, just think it through & if there's something you don't fully understand then do a bit of research/ask questions on it. HTH

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

Thanks Nige, yes, did help as always
Haven't got started on it yet, going to finish up the welds first then move onto it so that im not start stopping.
Here's the latest on the dent; couldnt pull it out, it was way too strong as the metal has folded in on itself. Cut it out instead and just working on the replacement sheet metal now.
Cheers!
Ray

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How to post pics: When writing a message, scroll down and use the "attach file" option. Where possible, a photo sharing service can be used such as Flickr, Imgur etc. The image location (usually ending in .jpg) can be copy and pasted between the ][ brackets that appear when you click the 'Img' button (you can find this button at the top of the message box).

How to post youtube vids: Click on the 'youtubeHD' button at the top of the message box and in the middle of the ][ brackets that just appeared, copy and paste everything from the youtube web address that appears after the = sign i.e if this is the url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cNqaPSHv0 just copy "K2cNqaPSHv0").