My 1973 Cadillac, Huggy Bear

[eddyramrod]

There is a lot of sense being spoken above, chaps, do not for one moment think I don't appreciate it!

Having something to weld to is obviously an issue here, I'm acutely aware of that.  Just because I never learned to weld doesn't mean I haven't soaked up some of the basics in half a century of messing with cars!  Pop rivets are a sound suggestion; I have all the kit (somewhere, most likely in my lockup) and I am quite experienced in their use.  I'm fortunate that Huggy has a proper chassis, so everything above is pretty unstressed, although I am worrying a bit about the rear screen.  I knew it was going to be bad.  I always knew.  But it had to be done, the previous repairs were disintegrating anyway and exposing holes.  We'll get there, somehow.

[purplebargeken]

Whereabouts are you again mate?

[eddyramrod]

Bottom-left corner of the Lake District: Barrow-in-Furness.

 

[Mr Pastry]

37 minutes ago, blackboilersuit said:

I've used P40 successfully for some pretty heavy duty industrial repairs before so I'm sure it's possible for you to re-instate the "structural filler" in this car in such a way as the repair will last for many many years to come. Just please stop digging...............

All of the above.  P40 is your friend, a bit pricey but it is surprising what you can make out of it. 

[mitsisigma01]

Plenty of welders in Barrow or there was before Maggie fkd them up 

[eddyramrod]

There might be plenty in the shipyard but you try and find one who can and will do car work!  We all know where my efforts in that respect have led...

[Tamworthbay]

Location is shit but the shape of the panel doesn’t look too bad. It would need that rear window out though and they are worse than front screens as can just shatter into a million bits whereas front ones are usually laminated. Shame you aren’t closer as a weekend with a welder (and the rear window out) would see most of that done at least reasonably well. Is it two panels coming together there? I am guessing there will be a rear seat back/ bulkhead panel and another that forms the rusted part and then the flange for the rear screen. Chances are that’s fucked too and presently held together by the rubber.

[eddyramrod]

There are several panels involved here, and between them I should be able to find enough foundation.  The trunk hinges are mounted on a big hefty upright that comes from the floor, between the wheelarches, and the wings themselves seem to be pretty sound.  The apron has an under-panel which seems to meet up with the rain channel around the trunk, and possibly also with the rear parcel shelf inside.  I suspect that's where the screen flange joins.

I'm going back outside now to hit it with the Kurust so that it can work overnight.  We might get a nice surprise in the morning, once I've been to my lockup for my riveting kit.

 

I have to believe it's going to work!

[Eavb]

I appreciate that you're probably a bit fed up with advice from every direction but, as somebody who spent several years welding for a living, why not just buy a cheapy mig welder (even a gasless one) and have a go? It doesn't matter too much if your welds aren't aesthetically pleasing as long as they are strong enough. It's really not that hard and it makes forming replacement panels a lot easier as you can make them up a bit at a time if you need to. There's loads of online tutorials too. 

 

Anyway I'll shut up now. Good Luck.

[Zelandeth]

P40 is bloody useful and so long as you can anchor it to something is bloody strong.  I discovered this when I came to break apart a couple of bits of bodywork on the Invacar I'd rebuilt with it and fouled up - ended up having to cut around the outside of the whole lot as it was going nowhere.  It was as (if not more so) strong as the original bodywork.

I reckon if it were me I'd be doing pretty much exactly what BlackBoilerSuit has suggested.

Just make sure you mask everything around there off as though you were going to be spraying paint...the stuff will get EVERYWHERE.

[Tenmil Socket]

Hi @eddyramrod Is it not worth prodding around the rest of the car checking for more before spending time on that repair?

[eddyramrod]

All good thoughts!

P40 is looking very likely (I already have P38).

Buy a cheap Mig and have a go?  Appealing in some ways, and as you say, it won't much matter what my work looks like, but there is a pretty major roadblock to get past: money.

Prodding around the rest of the car?  I don't need to, I know it's covered in bubbles.  It looks like a bloody Aero bar!  And yes, I know only too well what is behind each of those bubbles.  Nothing would please me more than to have the whole shell and the loose panels properly blasted and acid-dipped, and beautiful new metal lovingly caressed into the holes.  But that's not going to happen, for so many reasons but mostly the one above.  That process would cost the price of the Motability car by the time you add in the new paint, and however much I like a car, I can't possibly afford that.  It would also mean dismantling the car to the last nut and bolt and storing all the bits for two or three years.  Not happening.

The digging stage is over; it was over when I posted the pics this morning.  I had a pretty good idea what I was going to find, and in fact it's slightly better than I expected.  I do have a plan, of sorts.

This car was never supposed to be a major restoration, not while I have it.  I only ever intended to do what was necessary to keep it usable.  What you're seeing here is me actually tackling something myself, which happens very rarely!  For a long time it's just been easier to pay someone to do stuff, which I'm still having to do on occasion: witness my current brake issues.  I also had major brain surgery two years ago, which could have finished me off altogether but thankfully didn't, so there's an element of personal satisfaction involved in doing stuff to a car that I know I can do; I have experience of this kind of bodging.  Take a look at the "after" pic of the bonnet a page or two ago.  It could be better but it's a WHOLE lot better than it was before, and is pretty-much Cadillac-bonnet-shape.  A fair approximation of the correct shape will be good enough.

[stuboy]

lots of ventilation into the cabin..lol

[bunglebus]

Honestly, any idiot can stick two bits of steel together with a MIG, even me. It doesn't have to be pretty, and 2nd hand MIGs are not expensive. However protection from wind is pretty essential to get a half decent result, it's so satisfying feeling the panel you've made become a structural part of the body.

I can't help but think a ton of pudding is just further rot waiting to happen.

[eddyramrod]

23 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Honestly, any idiot can stick two bits of steel together with a MIG, even me. It doesn't have to be pretty, and 2nd hand MIGs are not expensive. However protection from wind is pretty essential to get a half decent result, it's so satisfying feeling the panel you've made become a structural part of the body.

I can't help but think a ton of pudding is just further rot waiting to happen.

I don't doubt any of the above!

Back in 2011/12 when I was going through a particularly bad time in Cyprus and trying to get back to UK, but struggling to even keep eating, I received a lot of "advice."  And I mean a LOT.  At least 99% of it was of the "I would have done this or that" which is precisely equivalent to "I wouldn't start from here," which in turn is precisely worth the paper it's written on.  I have to work with what I have.  And you know what?  The bits I've done already, I enjoyed doing.  I'm pleased with the results.  OK, now that I've moved to the back of the car, I've opened up a big job, but like anything on American cars, it's really only a matter of scale.  I can do this.  I can.  I've done it before.  And made it look good.  What I'm doing now is perhaps a bit more than I expected, but ok, I can still do it.  It won't be factory-perfect, it'll never win any shows, but that isn't what this car is about.  Or any other car I might have!  They all have to live outside, in the wind tunnel that passes for a back alley, wide open to passing members of the public.

I could have chosen a better house in a better location.  A four-bedroomed detached bungalow with a double-entry block-paved driveway and cavernous double garage would have been much more suitable.  But we didn't buy this house to live in, that was never our intention.  It was solely to provide rental income to help us in Cyprus, which it did.  We would have been lost without it.  The bungalow would also have cost a lot more to buy, meaning we would have run out of money much earlier.  So we bought a little terraced house, and it did its job.  And still is, because when we had to come back, we were able to write to our tenants and politely ask them to move out, which they did.  We walked in here with our suitcases, dog and a rental car, because everything else was in a container being shipped.  We'd rented the house furnished, all we (I) had to do was go shopping for food.

So you work with what you have.  I have, to paraphrase Liam Neeson, a particular and limited set of skills.  I have, very recently, proved to myself that I can still do a satisfactory job.  So while we have suitable outdoor-working weather, I might as well get as far as I can with the job.  I can't make it any worse!

[Split_Pin]

Having been in a similar situation to yourself back in April with my Clio, albeit on a much smaller scale, I feel your pain Eddy.

Also similarly, I had been thinking of selling my Clio since the turn of the year but part of me also wanted to keep it.

In the end, when my hand went through the floor, I swept up,  cut my losses and have ended up with a car I really wanted, my 75.

I know you have asked yourself, unless that rot is properly put to bed, will it still be on your mind like you say it was before?

It's a lovely car and I really want it to live on in your care, but would also not like to see you continue to worry about it, nobody needs that especially a gent like yourself.

 

[vulgalour]

Really, the best* solution is a couple of rolls of duct tape.  Cheap, durable, easy to replace, minimal mess.

[rickvw72]

As an ex body man, that needs welding mate. It’s structurally important area, and loads of clags gonna make it worse.

Facebook may turn up a mobile welder in your area, there’s several on marketplace in the locality when someone posts something  like “mot welding needed”

[jonathan_dyane]

Blackboilersuit has the winning plan

[captain_70s]

38 minutes ago, jonathan_dyane said:

Blackboilersuit has the winning plan

This. Thinking about what my course of action would be if it was sitting outside my flat...

Pop-rivets are probably easier but the remaining metalwork is so corroded they'll probably just pull/fall out in short order. It looks like somebody has done a serious job of wobbing this up and respraying it for sale at some point in the past

Usually I'd say throwing more wob at the problem will make things worse but there is so little surviving metalwork that there isn't much left to rot under the fibreglass anyway... At least some re-enforced fibreglass might stop the rear window from cracking/making a bid for freedom. I doubt any professional mobile welder will want anything to do with this - They make their money patching sills, not fabricating oddly shaped panels and trying to weld them in around a bit sheet of glass and a vinyl roof.

I know there has been a lot of "oh, but it's a separate chassis" flung about but I'd still be worried about the concept of going over a speedbump and the arse end of the roof collapsing into the passenger compartment... Are the C-pillar areas any better or equally as wobbed where the roof meets the body?

Incidentally I found this old advert featuring the car:

https://car-from-uk.com/sale.php?id=9054&country=uk

I imagine it was wobbed up either when it was imported or not long after and the British weather has just eaten it under the surface ever since. 

[eddyramrod]

That's very interesting!  Imported 14 years ago, it says, which dates the ad to about 2012.  How lovely it looked then...  Noticeably, even that ad talks about bubbles in the roof and C pillars.

On 7/2/2020 at 4:10 AM, captain_70s said:

 I doubt any professional mobile welder will want anything to do with this

This.  Experience suggests you speak the truth.

 

Blackboilersuit's plan above isn't far from my original intention; there may be some mix-and-match going on, but ultimately it was a very sensible suggestion.

[garbaldy]

Eddy pm me your postcode.

[Eavb]

13 hours ago, eddyramrod said:

Buy a cheap Mig and have a go?  Appealing in some ways, and as you say, it won't much matter what my work looks like, but there is a pretty major roadblock to get past: money.

Fair point, but at the risk of winding you up, that really needs some sort of structural repair. You can buy a cheap gasless (so you can use it in your wind tunnel) mig for £100 that will join metal together. 

I know not many of us on here are wealthy but I am happy to start the ball rolling by chucking a tenner into the "buy Eddy a welder" fund ?.

 

[loserone]

You can borrow mine, I haven't any gas yet though 

[Saabnut]

My take on this car, (Eddy feel free to tell me to FRO I am thick skinned!), based on 45 years of playing with automotive shite and 13 years owning and running what became the largest Classic Car specialist in NE Scotland. We did a lot of American vehicles and became the UK Corvair specialists.

This car has reached the point where there are realistically 3 options. 1. Break it for parts. Be a shame, but most cars get to that point at some point. 2. A full restoration. This is the only option if you are planning on welding that rear panel. To get access to do a proper job, you will need a bare shell. A rough estimate for a full restoration is 1000 hours plus parts and materials. At £50 per hour, that is £50k in labour and a final resto bill knocking on £100k. You would have to like the car a LOT unless you can do the work yourself. Not practical for Eddy. Option 3. The least recommended but what I think Eddy has chosen to do. Bodge it up, keep it on the road, enjoy for as long as possible. It is what I would do in his place. With luck, it will last longer this way than Eddy at which point it becomes someone elses problem.

The people who say the strength of this will be reduced are correct. But it will not be significantly reduced, these things are built like a brick shithouse. Admitedly not from the best of materials (remember 70s Vauxhalls? Well, both Cadillac and Vauxhall were both owned by GM and had the same head office accountants).  This car will still have far more strength full of wob than any of my pre war cars, or the Cobra. I drive them all happily without worrying what if.

So in summary, wob it up Eddy, enjoy doing the work, do the best you can then get out and enjoy driving it! At least the rear panel can not been seen from the driving seat!

[danthecapriman]

27 minutes ago, Saabnut said:

My take on this car, (Eddy feel free to tell me to FRO I am thick skinned!), based on 45 years of playing with automotive shite and 13 years owning and running what became the largest Classic Car specialist in NE Scotland. We did a lot of American vehicles and became the UK Corvair specialists.

This car has reached the point where there are realistically 3 options. 1. Break it for parts. Be a shame, but most cars get to that point at some point. 2. A full restoration. This is the only option if you are planning on welding that rear panel. To get access to do a proper job, you will need a bare shell. A rough estimate for a full restoration is 1000 hours plus parts and materials. At £50 per hour, that is £50k in labour and a final resto bill knocking on £100k. You would have to like the car a LOT unless you can do the work yourself. Not practical for Eddy. Option 3. The least recommended but what I think Eddy has chosen to do. Bodge it up, keep it on the road, enjoy for as long as possible. It is what I would do in his place. With luck, it will last longer this way than Eddy at which point it becomes someone elses problem.

The people who say the strength of this will be reduced are correct. But it will not be significantly reduced, these things are built like a brick shithouse. Admitedly not from the best of materials (remember 70s Vauxhalls? Well, both Cadillac and Vauxhall were both owned by GM and had the same head office accountants).  This car will still have far more strength full of wob than any of my pre war cars, or the Cobra. I drive them all happily without worrying what if.

So in summary, wob it up Eddy, enjoy doing the work, do the best you can then get out and enjoy driving it! At least the rear panel can not been seen from the driving seat!

This.

 

Thing is here, that panel has obviously been stuffed full of filler and fibreglass for some considerable time already, which doesn’t seem to have had much if any effect on the car up to now. I know the gaping hole looks bad and it does need a strong welded fix really, but if that’s not an option (which it clearly isn’t) then essentially doing the same again should be good enough for the time being.

One idea I did have in an attempt to try to add at least some strength and rigidity back into the area...

Could you get a big length of steel bar/box/angle whatever and bolt it across side - side either inside this panel or even beneath it inside the boot under the panel? If you managed to get it bolted firmly to each side where the shell is still solid that would definitely add strength, then you can rebuild that top skin section as you want to? There must be some decent framework etc behind the rear seats and under that panel to bolt a new cross member onto?

Also, to slow the rust down could you spray it all with wax before adding the top surface?

[rickvw72]

Without wanting to cause upset, after all this is a place to share opinion, hopefully based on experience, but I don’t think it should be used on the road if structural areas (it’s where the roof, rear seats etc mount) are made of filler.

As said previously, this type of work is something I’ve done in the past (as have many on this forum)

Id be totally shocked if that panel was the cars only structural ropey point. 
Rain etc has been going somewhere and that’ll be causing its own issues.

When I started in the trade I worked for a local highly respected Triumph specialist. We had a car that had a total rebuild but was hit in the rear in an accident, only months after restoration. The damage was enough that neither door opened, both jammed shut. We don’t want to think about it too much but old motors are damaged out there, the structure should be as safe as possible.
 

As said, not looking to be controversial here, that’s a cool car. 
I just know corrosion of that sort, and it’s beyond bodging with polyester.

[gadgetgricey]

Eddy,

There is a really good welder down here in Birmingham . I've used him a couple of times for stuff, but nothing as involved as this.

http://www.birminghamwelder.co.uk/   (Ernie, the fastest welder in the West (MIdlands))

He's always been good and relatively cheap. When I've turned up he's had a VW camper or similar there as an more involved job, so assume he;s not scared of that type of work.

Would it be worthwhile dropping him a line with some pics and get an estimated price for the work?  
If its something you want to do, would be more than happy to be a taxi service to take you home, and pick you up again when the work is completed.

Only issue might be he's normally quite busy, so may have a load of work on already.

Just a thought as do think this needs metal rather than P40, or you could go the whole hog and make a Caddy convertible

Take care bud.

[eddyramrod]

Thanks guys.  @Saabnut is absolutely correct, as is @danthecapriman.  

Option 2 is, as ,already established, unviable.  Option 1 is unpalatable but could well happen in the long term.  Option 3 is where we are then, and is all about staving off option 1 for as long as possible.  I've been over to my lockup again today and found some more stuff I'm going to need.  Watch; I can and will do a pretty good job, and as has been said, I will have a surprisingly strong car when I've done.  Ok it won't be like new but that was a long time ago!

[purplebargeken]

I have a welding machine you can borrow, have never been to Barrow and would happily give you a hand mate.