Filled rear body seams 69 Camaro

[Rick D]

Does anyone have any pictures or thoughts on filling the seams on the rear body panel of a 69 Camaro??? I am thinking of welding up the seams on the lower part of the rear body panel and maybe the rear panel by the rear window and trunk lid. If someones got a picture of it painted that would be great.

[JRouche]

I dont have a Camaro but a 62 Nova. I welded up the deep seams, makes for a better, smoother look IMO.

Couple of ways to go about it. You can dig the seam out clean and fill it with body filler. That may work if the seam is completely cleaned of and loose stuff. But if the seam is anything like the Nova its pretty deep. You may end up with close to a 1/4" of filler in there. And the fillers available today will hold strong. But thats still alot of filler. Shrinkage may produce some cracking. Doing it in layers might help, Im not sure.

I welded mine up. I had to dig way down to remove all the contaminates and it was really bad at the corners. Some yellow metal. Looked like brazing. I had to remove all of it before I welded it up. I found alot of yellow metal that isnt weldable on my car. Even some silver metal that was not weldable. I dont have a clue what that was.

But after I removed all the factory brazing metal (and it was ugly, had a much bigger hole than I wanted to deal with) I proceeded to TIG weld the clean steel closed. I took my time to keep the heat down. It took a long time. Much longer than some other welding projects on the car. For such a small area. But I have more time than I need. So I continued.

In the end, after building up the crease and sanding it down there was not any distortion of the surrounding sheetmetal. Alot of work for a small job.

Was it worth it? For me yes. It was alot of work for a minor appearance change but this is a hobby for me. My car isnt a get it done fast project. Its an on going hobby that wont ever get done. Thats the way I like it. Some folks bowl. I tinker on my car. JR

[Rick D]

I am realy looking for some pictures on how it looks, I konw how to do it, but thanks for the input. I have seen it done a couple of time but just wanted to see something painter????

[69projectKAOS]

i have one of the rear panel by the window but it isnt painted, i was going to do the same thing when my car got painted but i decided not to. but to be honest it would look good without the seam as well. hope i could help -dom