Roof Warping

I'm young and don't have a whole lot of expierence with welding. I had an older friend of mine help me weld in a big path into the roof of my 1959 Chevy Pickup. The roof is now warped in a few spots. Is there a way to get the rood back flat? Thanks in advance, Chris

 

sure, everything is fixable..hammer and dolly and some shrinking disk etc.... either you got a project to learn on or find someone that knows what they are doing. The easiest way is to install the patch nice and clean in the beggining... Jason.

 

The metal is warped because of the heat .The only way to fix it is to shrink it back.There are a few ways to do it .One way is to heat a small area with a torch where its stretched and then smack it with a small hammer.Before it cools take a dolly and pecking hammer and work it back fairly flat ,then quinch it with water quickly once and then let it cool the rest of the way naturally.Keep doing this over and over until the metal draws back tight again.Once its tightend back up (but not to much),take a hammer and dolly and shape it back to shape as you would any dent .This is just my way of doing it ,but it always works for me.Over time you will learn to weld in short stretches and read the metal to keep this from happening.Good luck with it ...

 

I would say its warped from shrinking not stretching...You have to hammer the welds a little to stretch them back out...Its a very good chance they didnt releive the weld after..so it shrunk around the heat zone....a few smacks with a hammer and dolly on the weld should put it back into the right shape and then if its over stretched shrink it back down with a torch or even better a shrinking disk...

 

Correct information.

Is the roof a single wall or double wall design? In other words, do you have decent access from the backside?

 

THanks for all the input.

I have okay access from the back side. It is a double wall but the inside wall doesn't cover the whole roof on the inside of the cab. It's hard to explain but the inside wall only covers about 6 inches from the sides all the way. The center of the roof on the inside has only one wall. Hope that made sense. Parts are 2 layers. THe center is on layer.