Sheet metal replacement intimidations. Share your experience!

[Filthy Filbert]

Just bought AMD metal from stephen's at the mopar nats last week.    Firewall, cowl, front/rear floor pans, A-pillars...   I have previously bought a roof skin and still have the passenger side quarter to hang. 

Part of my delay in this project has been life, moves, job changes, career changes, etc.   Part of it has also been my complete lack of experience.    I can build engines, suspensions, design and fabricate custom brakes, swap in after market transmissions, etc.    But I have ZERO experience with body work. 

It's a bit intimidating to think about...   so, how many others tackled the sheet metal work themselves starting out with zero experience?   Tell me your stories, suggestions, tips and tricks learned along the way, etc.

I hope to be cutting rusty metal out very soon.   Need to get the Dakota off jackstands first, as the T56 is getting rebuilt.

[dodj]

  so, how many others tackled the sheet metal work themselves starting out with zero experience?

I did back in the mid 80's. I did ok, the car is still holding together..lol But I did lots of things the 'incorrect' way.....
But if a resource like this website existed back then, I would have been able to do a much better job. Just peruse the 'restoration' threads. One that comes to mind is Dmod's thread. Check out what he did. LOTS of metal work there.

[Dmod1974]

Your situation sounds just like what mine was.  I literally did everything other than the body and avoided it for the first 15 years I owned it.  I started with the floor pans, and I'd recommend you do too.  They're relatively easy to do.  You won't see the imperfections of your first attempts and no elaborate bracing is needed if the rest of the car is sound and supported on jack stands properly.  Also, if it's anything like mine, you'll get a chance to find all kinds of extra rust repair needed when you start digging into it.  The joy!  What fun!  Not so much... 

The firewall and many other panel replacements are like car body Tetris.  You'll need to brace the body in various places and getting the entire panel out requires removing a bunch of other ones first.  The roof skin was super easy for me and dropped in place.  Other than that, expect nothing to fit well out of the box without massaging, cutting, grinding, bending, or running down with screws to conform.

You'll probably need to purchase a ton of new tools, but the costs really aren't too bad compared to non-body tools.  Clamps, vice grips of various kinds, spot weld cutters, sheet metal screws, 1/8" drill bits, angle grinders, flap discs, cutoff wheels, wire wheels, spray gun, and of course a MIG welder w/ gas among other things.

[Flatdad]

About 30 pairs of Vice Grips in various shapes & styles makes life a bit easier for me. Also, self tapping sheetmetal screws have been a life-saver. You would be surprised how many times a sledgehammer has been useful on my car... but I don't want to talk about it.

[Filthy Filbert]

Ok, so...Don't be afraid to get violent.    got it.   haha.   

My biggest worry is that something shifts on me, or something has already shifted that I don't realize, and on reassembly things won't line up right, like door gaps, or rear axle geometry/alignment, etc. 


Fortunately I've been 'wrenching' for long enough now that I have a pretty full set of tools.  angle grinders, flap wheels, cut off wheels, die grinders, air compressor, paint guns, etc.   And being a weld engineer, about a year and a half ago I got a deal on a demo unit millermatic 252 out of the Ohio State University weld lab. 


One thing I have going "in my favor" is that I don't have the build sheet or fender tag, so I don't have to feel stressed about making sure everything is "factory correct" in appearance.  I just need to get rid of rust and have a solid unibody that will look nice and drive straight down the road.

[Brads70]

I'm not expert but I found Cleco pins to be very helpful fitting metal or body panels.

[RzeroB]

You're a brave soul venturing into major panel replacement with no prior experience. Good news it that there is now a LOT of great instructional videos about it on YouTube! If possible, I would try and find a "helper" who has a little experience with this kind of work. Two extra hands and eyes are a HUGE help with this kind of work. 

[dodj]

I second Brad's Cleco post. They are great! I have a box full of 1/8" and 3/8" clecos. Put the panel on and off 38 times without a problem. 

[Rich G.]

Nowadays there is so much information and videos on how to do it it takes a lot of the mystery out of doing a great job. Watch plenty of them because some are good and some are not! You'll never learn if you don't do it. Patients is the key. Stop and think and stare at it and even walk away when you get frustrated. Good tools will make things a lot easier. I talk to a lot of good body guys and got some great  tips so don't be afraid to ask question. I've got some great tip from AMD when they went to Carlisle years ago and also Cody when I met him for the first time.

[gzig5]

You're a brave soul venturing into major panel replacement with no prior experience. Good news it that there is now a LOT of great instructional videos about it on YouTube! If possible, I would try and find a "helper" who has a little experience with this kind of work. Two extra hands and eyes are a HUGE help with this kind of work.

I did a lot of bodywork and painting with my Dad when I was young (35 years ago) but no panel replacement.  I'm currently in the middle of doing the B-pillar door jamb, both outer wheel housings, both full quarters, roof skin, A-pillar corners, and maybe the tail panel on my 73 Cuda.  It is a bit intimidating, but there are a lot of instructional posts and videos to reference. I think as long as I take my time and look before cutting, I'll get through it OK.  I'm not afraid to ask questions here or of experienced friends either.  It is taking a lot longer than I thought.  I wish I would have had the body dipped to be working with clean-ish metal, but unexpected accident repair ate that part of the budget.

[tparker]

I had to fix some dents, replace the entire trunk and roof, replace panel behind rear window, fix front window rot, fabricate a piece for behind the battery tray, and the lower rear section behind the tires. I worked at an auto body shop out of high school but only learned a very little. I picked up a welder and watched some youtube videos and had at it. Most of it wasn't too hard.

Welding sheet metal was hard. Very easy to blow through the metal. You just gotta work on it and take it slow and have patients. Usually any mistake is fixable. The hardest piece to replace the lower half of the rear quarter. The piece wasn't stamped perfect and I had a hard time getting the contour the same as the rest of the body panel. Lots of patience was needed. The roof was easy to put back on, but hard to drill out spot welds.

I think you just need to go for it. youtube is your friend if you don't have anyone else to guide you through it. I like to watch a lot of videos on the same subject because different people have different tips and tricks and some are pretty ingenious.

[1 Wild R/T]

Clecos are great except where you want to butt weld sheetmetal...  For that you need these or something like them..

https://www.amazon.com/MAOPINER-Welding-Clamps-Small-Panel/dp/B08ZDKFTLN/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=body+panel+butt+weld+clamps&qid=1629419031&s=automotive&sr=1-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExSlg2MkdUNU41TTlVJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMjIwOTc3VzdSNEdRMVhRNjU4JmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAwNjU5NjFMTUExOUM5TzNCQ1omd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

[jimynick]

You've got a pretty large "laundry" list. The first step is to measure every gap, opening and hole spacing and take about 200 photos from every conceivable angle,  as mentioned, a large portion of patience will also come in handy. I used some 3/4" angle iron that I welded between the W/S posts and down to the rockers with a small (16") diagonal corner brace between the W/S brace and the downleg rocker brace when I R&R'd the firewall, cowl, frt floor and both hinge pillars. The Clecos are very handy and the vicegrips you want are the 2 fingered type with some C-type ones as well as the regular types. Pay attention to the layering of the w/s-hinge pillars and try to test assemble everything to check your fits before welding. I had the firewall and front floor and hinge pillars all out at once and based on the aforementioned twisting, pushing, pulling, tweaking and good old cussin' I'd recommend doing it that way, because if you install thefloor panel and find you've got an "issue" with the cowl or w/s pillars, it'll allow you a wee bit more "wiggle room" to try to get it all together and you really don't want to have to cut your nice, newly installed floor pan out to fit the other stuff. At one stage, we had a floor jack with a 4X4 on it under the trans tunnel to get it to mate up with the cowl. Take your time and don't rely too much on the new parts's gauge holes. You can ask me how I know that, if you wish. Remember the cardinal rule!! Measure 6 times and weld once! Bonne chance! 

[torredcuda]

A lot of good info already, I agree start with floor pans, trunk floor and frame connectors if you are adding the as it will make the basic unibody structure pretty solid and keep most things from moving around. After that as has been said take lot`s of pics and lots of measurements of openings both straight across and "X`d", also have doors, trunk lid, fenders and hood available and fit them to the openings. Sometimes you can`t but try and clamp as many panels on at a time as you can to test that everything fits together OK.

[Cuda416]

I'm in the same boat. I've seen people do it on jack stands, but honestly I'm too chicken shit to try that so I'm going through the trouble to build a jig to put my car on. It's a rust bucket so I really need it to begin with.

My "plan" if you could call it that is to start in the middle. Get the front floor, rockers, firewall, a-pillars, etc tackled first. Once that's all locked in and solid, move forward. Firewall, cowl, inner fender panels etc. Once that's all good, move backwards.

I have a LOT of work ahead of me and yes, I'm a beginner and I've been "thinking" about this for almost 10 years. I gave myself 6 weeks to get the car mounted on the jig, two weeks ago. I'm on track to make that happen.

Good luck and for the love of all that us holy and good, ask people for help when you need it. I'm going to have a hard time slowing down when things present them selves as problems and I am on a roll. I will need to practice 'walking away' but still being on task of that makes sense.

Good luck, we'll need it.

C