small piece of channel

 

Passenger lower rear windshield channnel

 

Another random piece of channel

 

The front window was a surprise, it was much much worse than the rear windshield channel. Added 10 days of extra work I wasn't planning on, 97% of the top front windshield channel was replaced, what a pain.




The nailhead on the left is what they used at the factory to hold down the vinyl top; the nailhead on the right is for the special clips that retain the stainless window trim.

 

I quickly discovered a system: cut out sections 7" at a time. I then made 7" sections of metal, one for the glass to sit on, one for the "back" of the channel, and one for the roof section I cut out.

I then used those three as templates for every single section of channel I removed. This helped expedite but not that much.
Took about 7 days to finish front windshield.

 

next small section over; top drivers corner.

 

I decided when doing the other side of the top front channel to try and make it out of one large section; it was just as difficult ant time consuming.

 

The lower passenger corner of the front windshield was a hole, completely rotted out; drivers side is untouched. no before pics unfortunately.

First pick shows the "corner", if you can kinda see a black outline a ½" thick, that's what remains of the window seal, and the path it takes; you can see right pelow the silver trim piece that it leaves a gaping hole from rust directly on the path of window seal. That hole does not go into the interior, but some exterior chasm. The entire factory area was covered in a layer of seam sealer.

Second pic shows after further excavation.

The final pic shows the fix, hoping the "window seal path" is smooth enough for a good proper seal.

 

11-3-25
Rear passenger quarter panel

 

11-5-25
Passenger fender

 

I also patched the drivers fender, and driver front door(tiny patch), but I never took photos.

The day I was supposed to start body filler and priming, I discovered I had completely overlooked the very first thing I worked on, the upper drivers rear windshield corner, so I attacked that. No finished pictures.

I would like to be clear, ever single corner patch I did was don differently, I did not streamline a method of attack. There's no easy way without proper tools.

 

Body filler phase.

I was in a rush and honestly couldn't care less, I was so lazy I didn't even sand it, I got out an angle grinder with a stripper disk and went at it till I though it was good enough. No finished pictures.

 

I have done masking before and knew darn well it takes forever, but for some reason I completely under estimated the time it'd take , took 2 days to mask off.

 

More masking.

 

I hate spraying primer because I've never been good at getting it to come out of the gun, sometimes it spatters like its globbing too wet or something, sometimes it's too dry, sometimes it lays down just right.

Could be because I refuse to use a good gun and keep using the $17 harbor freight purple gun. On day 1 I started out ok,I mixed a small cup of primer in a test batch, it sprayed PERFECT.

Then I spent 3 hours, 2 completely wasted large cups , and 2 brand new paint guns....all of it wasted...I could NOT get the primer to spray, then it clogged up gun 1, then I broke gun 2 tring to clean it while brand new. I rushed to the store and bout three more, and in about 1 hour I primed the rest of the car and it worked mostly well.