hello..just bought a van where the PO welded a roof to it because it had a fiberglass roof, he saved a bunch of pictures of the way he did it.. he said an old body man told him to do it that way...it doesnt look too bad and the panels looks pretty straight. I havent seen it done this way
@iwanaflattie Cutting those ‘tabs’ was one hell of a tedious and time consuming job! It looks to have been very carefully done. Amazing! Seth, you live a very interesting life! (and very entertaining for the rest of us ) Ray
yes,it looks very tedious work,the guy is very organized,,,gave me a usb drive full of old pictures,wiring diagrams,receipts,etc etc,,, my interesting life is buying project after project and never finishing 1 of them.
Never seen or done anything like that. Looks like an obnoxious amount of extra welding and grinding. Some auto manufacturers used to have a sectioning procedure where they wanted the panel edge bent in at 45 degrees, with the replacement panel partially overlapping the 45 degree edge. As much as I enjoy doing things the hard way, I think I'll just stick to butt welding!
That's an old method for a brazed joint in sheet metal work. Once brazed you can grind it back and the joint is almost invisible. Definitely not for auto body work, would just create a mess.
Yes...he picked up this van for 200 with a fudge up roof...then he found another van full of engines and transmissions but the junkyard was told to clear everything for new development...he couldn't drag that van out since it was full to the top with cast iron blocks so he offered to buy the roof...then he cut it off... Later on he found a complete van but the junkyard wouldnt sell it as they couldnt legally so he took parts off if it.. I ended with extra parts off of 2 other vans