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The worst part of my 68 Cougar, ever since I inherited it, has been the rust underneath the vinyl roof. I would often run my hand over the bumps and bubbles and hit the center of the roof with my palm and cringe as I heard it go "crunch crunch crunch." So finally, I'm doing something about it.
I've done an amateur restoration before, with my uncle, so I'm not a complete newbie to working on old cars. But I'm no expert either. I'm trying to find out if someone like me can actually pull this off. Granted, I have some good people around me to help out and give me advice, but I'm trying to do as much as it myself as possible.
While I'm doing this, I'm making a video to document the process. It may not turn out as well as some of our other ones, since I'm mostly just putting the camera on a tripod and filming myself, but hopefully it will be good encouragement for others with rusty roofs.
I got started last Wednesday by stripping out my interior (more of it than I needed to, but I wanted to see what my floors looked like) and in the following days I removed the trim pieces and front / rear glass. I actually was able to rip off the vinyl roof before taking the glass out, because the last time it got replaced, they apparently left the glass in and trimmed the vinyl around it. It was the same story with the headliner. Glass left in, trimmed to fit. The roof was covered in flaky bondo, a clear indication of how the previous "repair" was done. There were many pieces with stalagmites of bondo which had dripped into rust holes. Upon cleaning up most of the flakes of bondo and loose rust, I could get a better look at the rust. The roof is mostly in one piece, but there are holes everywhere. It's gotta go. The rear window channel is shot too, but that's another job.
The way I'm trying to do this, by the way, is just the outer sheet metal skin of the roof. I don't want to cut out the structure. The way this is done is to find and drill out all the spot welds all the way around. There is a lead seam on the C-pillars which needs to be melted off to reveal the spot welds. Anyways, enough said, here's some pics of the progress so far.
Here's a "before" shot... you can't really see the bubbling under the roof but there was plenty. The vinyl itself was pretty rough on top too.
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Here's some shots just after I peeled off the vinyl. Notice the copious amounts of flaky bondo.
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... And below are some shots of where I'm at right now. Flakes mostly cleaned up, glass removed, headliner removed, all trim removed, and locating the lead seam / spot welds with a wire wheel.
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Stay tuned! More updates soon. I expect to get most of the work done within the next few days. I guess we'll find out!
I've done an amateur restoration before, with my uncle, so I'm not a complete newbie to working on old cars. But I'm no expert either. I'm trying to find out if someone like me can actually pull this off. Granted, I have some good people around me to help out and give me advice, but I'm trying to do as much as it myself as possible.
While I'm doing this, I'm making a video to document the process. It may not turn out as well as some of our other ones, since I'm mostly just putting the camera on a tripod and filming myself, but hopefully it will be good encouragement for others with rusty roofs.
I got started last Wednesday by stripping out my interior (more of it than I needed to, but I wanted to see what my floors looked like) and in the following days I removed the trim pieces and front / rear glass. I actually was able to rip off the vinyl roof before taking the glass out, because the last time it got replaced, they apparently left the glass in and trimmed the vinyl around it. It was the same story with the headliner. Glass left in, trimmed to fit. The roof was covered in flaky bondo, a clear indication of how the previous "repair" was done. There were many pieces with stalagmites of bondo which had dripped into rust holes. Upon cleaning up most of the flakes of bondo and loose rust, I could get a better look at the rust. The roof is mostly in one piece, but there are holes everywhere. It's gotta go. The rear window channel is shot too, but that's another job.
The way I'm trying to do this, by the way, is just the outer sheet metal skin of the roof. I don't want to cut out the structure. The way this is done is to find and drill out all the spot welds all the way around. There is a lead seam on the C-pillars which needs to be melted off to reveal the spot welds. Anyways, enough said, here's some pics of the progress so far.
Here's a "before" shot... you can't really see the bubbling under the roof but there was plenty. The vinyl itself was pretty rough on top too.
Here's some shots just after I peeled off the vinyl. Notice the copious amounts of flaky bondo.
... And below are some shots of where I'm at right now. Flakes mostly cleaned up, glass removed, headliner removed, all trim removed, and locating the lead seam / spot welds with a wire wheel.
Stay tuned! More updates soon. I expect to get most of the work done within the next few days. I guess we'll find out!
