quarter replacement questions

[HILROD]

The inner structure stays at the door jam, The drip edge has spotwelds under the seam sealer. Some cars have a lot of welds there, some have less. Usually you cvan see the welds better fron the bottom side. I don't think anyone sells the inner parts seperate.

[marty69212]

how do you get a drill in there to drill those spot welds? if i reember right, my new quarter doesnt lay flat in the gutter... whats up?

[Jim Nilsen]

The drip rail is attached to the roof panel and the part of the sail panel on the rear with a seam welder, it is a resistance weld and not spots. I removed my quarter panel from the roof drip with a cutoff wheel very carefully after cleaning all of the seam sealer off of it. The quarter panel will tuck up under the roof panel after all of the spot welds are removed. It doesn't sound like you have found the actual seam in the sail panel yet or you would have dicovered the lead. You can remove the lead with a simple propane torch. Make sure you remove the paint and the primer back far enough to not burn it and make sure you do all of this in a well ventilated place and still wear a respirator when doing it. Always wear a mask when working with lead and good gloves too.

Be careful to not mess up the corner brace that is inside and attached with 2 spot welds to the door jamb and down on the rocker,the brace is at a 45 degree angle and is visible from inside . Study all of this before you just start to hack away and you will be thankfull later. patience will save you time later. Whittle away at areas by removing the face of the panel so you can get in places with grinders and drills to remove spot welds. Take a lot of pics as you go along so you don't forget.
Also make sure you don't destroy the inner trunk piece that holds your weatherstrip,it is attached to the rear panel and the panel from the trunk to the rear window.

Any questions you have just ask. Make sure you some bandaids around because you will need one sooner or later.

Have fun and remember it's just a car and that little spot weld isn't going to kick your a$$

[marty69212]

ive rought cut the quarters out. i haved all the lead out and when i was cutting, i thought that the quarter was just seem sealed to the drip edge, but obviously not, so i just cut it about an inch back from the drip rail for now , so i could get most of the quarter off and see what ive go tthere ... i still really dontunderstand the weld your talkin about in the drip edge to quarter, do i drill out from the bottom of the drip edge or grind in the gutter?

[HILROD]

There are welds along the drip-edge, that are oval looking and usually spaced very close together. While I am not sure how they are made, they can be drilled out, from the bottom up or the old quarter can be ground off with a cut off wheel. I usually use a combination of both. If you drill, you can reweld thru those holes when going back together.

[marty69212]

thanks for all the help guys!!! so far , so good!!!!

[Jim Nilsen]

Think of it like a rolling spot welder. If you looked real close at mine you could see the knurling effect on both sides of the spot that looked like it was squeezed and used as the drive for the proper speed.