1978 Fiat 124 Restoration -- I hope

[wajulia]

I finished disassembling and sanding the doors.

The passenger door below. No real surprises. A little rush internal to the door that I need to address, otherwise it is the best panel on the car.


Now the drivers door -- Another surprise. That line of droplets you can see in the photo is old damage. It looks like it dragged something all the way down the door. It is dented and buckled and warped. There was about 1/2 inch of bondo on the door to bring back the shape. Again, not a lot of evidence of trying to repair damage, just bondo over it. This is going to cause me to buy one of those dent puller spot welders -- or buy a new door skin.

Still waiting for the lower valence pieces so I can get started putting some new metal on.

[18Fiatsandcounting]

Now the drivers door -- Another surprise. That line of droplets you can see in the photo is old damage. It looks like it dragged something all the way down the door.

Interesting. One possibility is that someone was backing the car in or out of a garage or other tight space, had the door open, and hit the garage door frame or a workbench or the like. Two feet of damage before realizing what was happening....

-Bryan

[wajulia]

I began to look at the drivers rear wheel well and realized that there was nothing to fix. I removed the outer wheel well assembly. It is seen below draped over the back of a chair. Not much left to it.



I bought a new one from Mr. Fiat. The shape seems to be about right, but there is a lot more material than I need. Not sure how to measure and trim -- because it is to large it cannot fit into the space. So I am thinking I might cut it into 3 or 4 pie wedges and then just keep trimming until I get where I need it. Any thoughts

[wajulia]

I finally got the four "sill" panels for the sills near all four wheels. I took the sill off the drivers side and found more rust. Below is the car with the sill removed. I will put a small patch panel on the rust hole seen in the left. After that it seems like I finally hit solid metal.

[18Fiatsandcounting]

Any thoughts

You're way beyond my level of ability so there's not much that I can offer, other than to say you are doing good work so far, and so I'd just keep going. I wish you were closer to where I am, as my 1971 spider has a few outer panels that need replacing, and my skills are limited to mechanical work and not bodywork.

-Bryan

[wajulia]

What a journey. Below is a picture of the completed drivers rear quarter. What did I do, I had to remove the rectangle on the left to get to the lower skirt panel. Remove and replace the skirt. I removed the inner wheel well and then replaced the rear quarter panel, then I replaced the inner wheel well with a replacement.

Not doubt I am over my head. This was all so hard. I started thinking that I could take my time and be able to let the car go without paint and no-one would know I changed any parts. Well that didn't work out that way. So there is no need in telling me that my work is not very good -- It is well understood, but it is better than when I started and the next section will be better than this. Any hints and suggestions are always welcome

I spend hours fixing the wholes I burned through the thin metal. The resulted is warped and twisted, the body work will be much more than I had hoped. In the middle of it I just had to convince myself I was not going to get the skills of the internet guys, so I just had to push through and do the best with the skills I have. Props to you internet guys that can but two thin metals together and finish them to a perfect finish -- Props to you.

But I did get to know the guy that sells me welding gas. What a nice man. He seems perfectly happy selling me tanks of ungodly expensive shielding gas.


Now know that the rear quarter panel certainly has more metal than rust. I still need to come back and fix a few small parts.

[wajulia]

So on to my next adventure. I decided to go for the floor boards next. It seems that they have already been repaired once. Just flat parts laid over the rusted floor and welded on. As you can see below, the rust just kept going.

I bought the floorboards from Mr. Fiat, but at first look they do not cover all the issues so I will be doing some fabrication to get the floor solid up to the floorboards.

The pictures below are the whole car, then the passenger side and the drivers side. I already took the seat supports out, I will show those on the next post.

One of my concerns are the number of wholes that need to be added to the floor boards for Transmission bracket, Upper rear suspension arms, muffler hangers and other bits and brackets. Some of them will need to be fairly precise. I find it interesting that the Transmission and rear suspension hang off the thin piece of steel. They must have been ripping themselves off the car before I got it.

[wajulia]

I took hours to release the seat support from the floor. I tried to take my time as I cannot find it on any of the sites and will have to reuse it. I looks sort of OK in the first picture, but look at the next two pictures and you can see the challenges.

I have found the actual seat supports, but I cannot find the cross pieces. So I will begin fabricating the cross piece and then see if I can fix the seat supports and trade money for time. Lets see what happens.

Well now I can get frustrated with metal fab. The guys on the internet can make the most complex shapes with just a hammer and a welder. How hard can it be!!! Time to get started -- education is never free and I have so much more to pay.

[Akspider]

May be a little late for this but my '72 needed a LOT of patches! I used a similar flange tool to this (Astro 605ST ONYX Straight Type Punch/Flange Tool) available on Amazon. Gave a good backing for flush welding the patches and replacement fender flairs. Your project's looking good - it'll be nice ride when finished. Have fun and carry on!