Jeff Stich
True Classic
Finally got a day to myself, & decided to dig into the body work on this 1967 Fiat 850 Coupe project car. First step, removing all of the previous owners' "repairs". The car looked clean at first glance, but upon closer inspection you could see a lot of bulging spots around the car, as well as random rust-colored cracks in the paint, both pointing to old Bondo'd areas needing attention.
The most glaringly-obvious starting point was the rear body panel, which had been "made one" with the rest of the car by Bondo-ing over the main seams (separations) between the rear fenders & the center tail panel (which is supposed to be removable - that's how you service/remove/install the engine). Here's a "before" pic, shown with the bondo covering the right-side vertical seam (just above/below the right taillight opening) & the upper part of the left seam having already cracked from stress &/or cold, with the lower left seam still covered:
You can also see that the center body panel has been damaged by someone hooking a tow hook to the bottom & pulling on it. Unfortunately, that mount is really just a jacking point, not designed to take the stress of being pulled on with a winch. The lower corner of the left fender also appeared to be a little bigger (fatter/sharper contour) than the right corner...little did I know at the time what that really meant.
Since the center body panel would obviously need to come on/off for engine service use & to (try to) straighten that bottom edge of the panel, the left seam gap needed to be separated somehow. So out with the hand tools, and...
The lower left corner being revealed, sort of...some metal seems to be missing?
After getting all of the bondo out from the seam between the left fender & the center panel, all that was left was to unbolt the panel & then pull it rearward away from the car. Right side, no problem. Left side? It wouldn't budge. It turns out that the previous "repairman" had run several long sheetmetal screws from the inside of the rear fender & through the adjacent center panel, thereby (again) bonding the 2 panels together. To access those screws, I had to remove several different-colored layers of bondo, 2 layers of resin(!) & some perforated sheetmetal (used as lath) from the lower corner area. This whole mess was conveniently held in place with several (hidden to me) randomly-placed sheetmetal screws. Here's a good sample of the various layers, with one of the sheetmetal screws still embedded in place:
Tearing enough of the bondo/resin/metal out of the way revealed a gaping hole in the lower corner of the fender, almost like something had taken a bite out of the car. :eat: Nonetheless, I finally had access to the screws holding the panels together! With the screws removed, the center panel came out with a bit of help from a rubber mallet. Next came draining the coolant, then engine & radiator removal, leaving me with open access to the engine bay:
Tired, hungry & my body aching from rolling around on the floor, I decided to call it a day.
(To be continued...)
The most glaringly-obvious starting point was the rear body panel, which had been "made one" with the rest of the car by Bondo-ing over the main seams (separations) between the rear fenders & the center tail panel (which is supposed to be removable - that's how you service/remove/install the engine). Here's a "before" pic, shown with the bondo covering the right-side vertical seam (just above/below the right taillight opening) & the upper part of the left seam having already cracked from stress &/or cold, with the lower left seam still covered:
You can also see that the center body panel has been damaged by someone hooking a tow hook to the bottom & pulling on it. Unfortunately, that mount is really just a jacking point, not designed to take the stress of being pulled on with a winch. The lower corner of the left fender also appeared to be a little bigger (fatter/sharper contour) than the right corner...little did I know at the time what that really meant.
Since the center body panel would obviously need to come on/off for engine service use & to (try to) straighten that bottom edge of the panel, the left seam gap needed to be separated somehow. So out with the hand tools, and...
The lower left corner being revealed, sort of...some metal seems to be missing?
After getting all of the bondo out from the seam between the left fender & the center panel, all that was left was to unbolt the panel & then pull it rearward away from the car. Right side, no problem. Left side? It wouldn't budge. It turns out that the previous "repairman" had run several long sheetmetal screws from the inside of the rear fender & through the adjacent center panel, thereby (again) bonding the 2 panels together. To access those screws, I had to remove several different-colored layers of bondo, 2 layers of resin(!) & some perforated sheetmetal (used as lath) from the lower corner area. This whole mess was conveniently held in place with several (hidden to me) randomly-placed sheetmetal screws. Here's a good sample of the various layers, with one of the sheetmetal screws still embedded in place:
Tearing enough of the bondo/resin/metal out of the way revealed a gaping hole in the lower corner of the fender, almost like something had taken a bite out of the car. :eat: Nonetheless, I finally had access to the screws holding the panels together! With the screws removed, the center panel came out with a bit of help from a rubber mallet. Next came draining the coolant, then engine & radiator removal, leaving me with open access to the engine bay:
Tired, hungry & my body aching from rolling around on the floor, I decided to call it a day.
(To be continued...)
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