Help me cut up my TA!

[dhutton]

If it were me I’d go at it with a stud welder, slide hammer, hammer and dolly and a shrinking disc. There is no shame in an 1/8” of quality filler.

Otherwise you want to make your cuts and welds near body lines to avoid warping the metal too much. Do some reading on how to planish your tack welds as you go.

Don

[WSSix]

Thanks, Don. I'll be sure to look into the planish information.

The issue that I run into with trying to repair the current quarter is the corner under the top portion where the spoiler mounts and after the marker light. It's not supposed to be a corner. It's supposed to be rounded to meet the bumper. I don't know when all the paint and body work was performed on the car, but I've owned the car since 1999. The work they did was good aside from not rebuilding the radius and making it a corner.

[WSSix]

Bring this back up cause I'm getting closer to starting the cuts. I have the portion from the old quarter I intend to use already removed.

One thing I am a little concerned with is that my rear bumper has always had a larger gap below the driver's tail lights than the passenger side. Yet, the bumper cover has always been up against both quarter panels so I'm not sure I can raise the driver's side of the bumper. I don't want to assume I can simply make adjustments to get it right. I'm concerned I'm missing something though I can't find anything else on the car that looks tweaked or damaged in any way. Aside from the portion of the quarter shown, the quarter is in great condition.

Thoughts?

Here's a couple pictures. The second one looks like the tail lights are up against the trunk panel correctly.

[redfire69]

Hi Trey,

Something looks out of whack. From the picture, the taillights don't look level across the back. Bumper issues aside, it looks like the passenger taillight is somehow lower (looking at the bottom of the spoiler corners compared to the bottom of the taillight).

Ron

[ErikLS2]

Not to derail your plans but I had a front fender that looked much worse than this. I found a good sheet metal body guy that hammer/dollied it back to a very light coat of filler. I would suggest that before you go cutting anything. My $0.02.

[WSSix]

Hmmm, I see what you're saying, Ron. I'm honestly not sure. I'll pull it all apart and take a look. I only had the driver's side apart earlier.

No worries, Erik. I appreciate the input.

Thank you, both.

[WSSix]

So I did some more research, which means browsing bring a trailer since they have lots of great pictures, and I had forgotten how bad the build quality is on these cars. Basically, I just need to spend some time adjusting everything until I get it close because that's all you can do. From restored cars to low mileage originals, the tail lights are all over the place in terms of fitment. I'll see what I can do this weekend before going any further.