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Restoration over leaded areas

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 6:12 pm
by Fred Gruhl
A newbie looking for some advice.

Since there's rust coming through on the outside at the rear of the door (B-pillar) of my C Cab, I sanded down to metal/lead. However, do I have to cut out and replace all of the leaded portions since I can't MIG weld to lead? Getting the correctly shaped panels from Stoddard, but was just planning to weld in a rectangular piece where the rust was.

As you can see in the picture, there's a small amount of rust close to the top, but there's leading all along the door from top to bottom. No place to weld in a panel. Should I just grind out all of the lead where I want to put my panel? Thanks for any suggestions.

Fred

Re: Restoration over leaded areas

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 9:15 pm
by Phil Planck
Fred
Welcome, and glad to see your working on the cab. That lead is there to make an even gap with the rear of the door and to level out the outer panel with the door. It also forms the smooth step shape on the outer edge of the lock post. On my 63 coupe there was quite a bit. I would not grind it off - lead dust not good. You can use a propane torch to melt it off. Place a clean piece of cardboard on the floor to catch the lead drippings, which you may be able to recycle. When you get that lead off, you may find more rust to deal with. After the repair panel/s is on you have to decide if you want to re-lead that area or use plastic filler. That top area is a real mud trap and very prone to rusting, even though the factory put lots of tar filler up there on the inside.

Here is that area on my coupe after lead removed and the Restoration Design repair panel welded in, plus another patch at the top that had to be added because I did not realize there was rust way up there until I had welded in the RD panel. Removing the remaining lead exposed more rust up there.

Re: Restoration over leaded areas

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 9:34 pm
by Fred Gruhl
Thanks, Phil, for your speedy reply. You are the one who set me on the right course with this Cab, so thank you once again.

I will likely use filler to get the surfaces to match; using lead takes a lot of talent.

Hope to see you in one of the upcoming MI events.

Fred