I was wondering what was the best way to put a patch panel on my quarter panels. I know some people have said that welding them is difficult because the metal gets "waves" in it from the heat. A local body shop man had suggested using an adhesive when I asked him @ 2 months ago. It's going to be 1 of my winter projects for the car, and wanted to start getting things together now.I was looking through an Eastwood book that came in today, and they had a system that used some kind of adhesive to put patch panels in. Has anyone ever used such a system o No: Thanks. Dan :3gears:
Patch Panel Patch Panels are not as hard as you think when using a Mig welder. If you have a donor car that you can cut the area that you need you have half the battle won! Heat will build up if you do a long weld at one time, The trick is to just stitch weld it! About every six inches and let cool and then go back and start filling in between each stitch weld slowly do not try and fill it all at once! Take your time. Also you may want to invest in a Flange/punch tool, It is a great tool to have when you do patch panels. Almost any type of "adhesive that you use will weaken and come loose sooner or later in my opinion. Just practice on some material like you will be welding, and before you know it you will be able to do a good job THE KEY IS WORK SLOW! Just my opinion for what it is worth o No: Don
Patch panel how to Do not use the adhesive!You can go to an all day seminar on how and why you should use it but the truth is the seam will shrink and you will be able to see it for such a repair!We use it for gluing blind panels together such as joining a roof skin on,however the directions state that you must spot weld the edges(all hidden on such a job such as under the windshield or back glass)The shear strength is actually stronger than the steel it,s used on believe it or not!The steel will rip before the seam breaks,but when you glue the two pieces together and fill over it the stuff will move under the filler enough to cause a discernible line.Do as 65 wildcat suggested and stitch the panels together in a butt weld fashion,not a flanged seam(traps moisture)Just tack,space,tack,space,tack space until your seam is filled!If you actually have a weld bead then you have probably put to much heat into it and caused some warpage,some is going to happen,you just dont want to much!I hope this works for you,It is what we use on a daily basis in the shop.
Hummmm 2Scoops, Why not a flange? If you treat the edge of the flange with a good coat of rust inhibiter primer I would think that you woulld'nt have a problem with moisture. I did it with my 32 ford and that was about nine years ago and The person that has it now has no problems,Am I missing something here? o No: . Just curious uzzled: Don
There's many schools of thought on bonding vs welding. Bonding technology even exists in new car manufacturing and how many seam cracks do we see on factory cars? I don't think any kind of welding of panels can guarantee moisture absence and eventually we will have to redo our cars again. I was skeptical at first over bonding, but like anything else it all depands on who does it, the products they use, and how carefully they follow the manufacturers guidelines. I dont think we can generalize about bonding leaving cracks. I've seen alot of terrible welded patch panel work. I think the bonding option is definately worth looking into. In my case the results were excellent and I have no reservations on recommending to GO BONDING. I live in a climate of extreme temperature differences, I thrash the car hard at the strip and have experienced no seam problems to date. Here's a few pics of the panels that were replaced. No cracks & straight with probably less bondo than a welded joint.
Finisihed, inside trunk. No cracking on inside seam either. The car resides in a unheated garage. The temperatures have been -38 to over 100 deg F. Murphy, I contact my bodyman to confirm what specifc produlct line of adhesives he uses and advise. I think it was 3M.
GUTSY GUTSY GUTSY but I'VE DONE IT TOO! Stg'd 2Discovered: Gutsy move with the bonding area. I've owned a body shop here for 14 years and doing body work all my life. The 3M rep shows up at my shop every month and he told me that you should never glue a body panel that is going to get a finish coat on the seam. " BUT " I will have to admit i did glue in some quarter panel patches on a customers 68'GS one time and it still looks like the day it left (5 years ago). So it is up to the individual and there bodyman on whether or not to use the product. The problem in my opinion is trying to get all the glue out of the seam before you put any type of fill back on the seam to cover it up. PREPERATION IS THE KEY! Food for thought.:TU: Oh yeah, Nice looking car.
