Are you replacing the whole side skin? Or just the quater pannel? Word of wisdom, BE CAREFUL. You might be opening a bigger can of worms than you want to. There are pinch weld on the underside of the quarter pannel

 

I am replacing it from top to bottom, but not from front to back. I am only going from the tail lights to behind the rear wheel cutout.

As far as the welds, it looks like I will be able to get to everything I need to with a spot weld cutter. I'm pretty confident that this will work out pretty well. Gotta take my time with it, but I think I can do it.

 

It appears that you need a sand blaster to get all that surface rust under control after you fit the "new" parts !
Hope you can get it done OK........

 

Once I cut the patch piece off the "new" shell it will go in the cabinet and get blasted where I can't sand with a DA sander.

 

It’s nice to see someone else working on a 64.

You're quite lucky to have a donor car. New full replacement quarters can't be purchased. The quarter "skins" that are available only go back to that nice "crisp" line you see in IMAG0293.jpg and up to the body line in the same image. Anything behind that, like the wrap around to the tail light sections, would have to be fabricated one patch at a time.

You want to salvage the tail light area as carefully as possible (even if you don’t plan to use them, they are very rare!). Replacement skins also do not include the pinch welds on the underside just behind or in front of the wheel well. These would have to be reconstructed.

MY biggest issues are that the lower outer panel skins I purchased have nothing to weld to. My INNER structures have rusted away as well. I will have to recreate all of this unless I find a donor.

One single line of advice; strip the sections on both your cruck and your donor down to bare metal BEFORE you start cutting. You don't want any surprises.

I see a several areas on your cruck and the donor that MAY have the same issues. You won’t know until you can get both pieces down to bare metal whether you can swap them.

On a killer note! IMAG0267.jpg shows a really nice piece (the complicated stamping that mirrors the inner bumper shape)! It is shaped well with little rust. The right side, IMAG0295.jpg, looks nice as well.

IMAG0270-1.jpg, where you’ve circled the spot welds: Find them all, drill them out. Salvage the bumper creases you see in IMAG0267 and IMAG0295. Drill out the spot welds on the lower side of the quarter behind the wheel well.

You will need to use an air chisel to separate the pieces once the spot welds are removed.

You should wind up with a “rear 1/3 quarter patch”. It will run vertically from the underside pinch weld, to the top seam starting just behind the wheel well and running all the way to the back of the quarter panel while salvaging some of the most complicated shapes.

Geez, I didn’t mean to be so long winded.

 

Thanks for all the info, Axe. When I bought the 64, I assumed it would have as many off the shelf parts as all the other Elcos out there, but didn't realize that 64 and 65 were kind of on an island as far as a lot of that goes. It seems to really pick up in the aftermarket in 66. I actually have a pair of the skins you are talking about in the barn. I ordered them basically just hoping they would include all the tail light area, but to no avail. Picked this shell up for $200, to it's well worth it. The main reason I am starting my patch right behind the wheel well is that somewhere along the way, someone "opened up" the wheel opening (you may be able to see what I am talking about in my avatar), and I like that that is different (and it was actually done fairly well). As far as this donor, it looks a lot worse in the pictures as far as the rust goes than it actually is. Up front the floor pan is shot, but behind that, the whole bed is in very serviceable shape. Lots of projects going on right now, but I really hope to dive into this one soon and see what I can do with it. That piece you mentioned that nests the bumper was the main piece I was after since it would be a pretty hard piece to fab my hand. The quarter panels I could have dealt with maybe, but that piece was the big score.

 

Thanks for all the info, Axe. When I bought the 64, I assumed it would have as many off the shelf parts as all the other Elcos out there, but didn't realize that 64 and 65 were kind of on an island as far as a lot of that goes. It seems to really pick up in the aftermarket in 66. I actually have a pair of the skins you are talking about in the barn. I ordered them basically just hoping they would include all the tail light area, but to no avail. Picked this shell up for $200, so it's well worth it. The main reason I am starting my patch right behind the wheel well is that somewhere along the way, someone "opened up" the wheel opening (you may be able to see what I am talking about in my avatar), and I like that that is different (and it was actually done fairly well). As far as this donor, it looks a lot worse in the pictures as far as the rust goes than it actually is. Up front the floor pan is shot, but behind that, the whole bed is in very serviceable shape. Lots of projects going on right now, but I really hope to dive into this one soon and see what I can do with it. That piece you mentioned that nests the bumper was the main piece I was after since it would be a pretty hard piece to fab my hand. The quarter panels I could have dealt with maybe, but that piece was the big score.

 

I learned the same lessons. I called around for replacement rear quarters and was told they were not available. One vendor, can't remember which this was 2000, said he had a few,but would not sell them to me because they were poor quaklity and those who had bought them had bitched him out and returned them for credit.
My first 64 looked good until I found that someone had "dummied up" the lower edges of both rear quarters. As we started to dismantle the car it became a gigantic collection of worms, rust, screening and bondo. I ended up buying two complete quarters(from 2 different salvaged cars) from "Death Valley Auto" in Arizona. They were flown into Newark airport by Kalitta Air Service.Back then, the cost seemed reasonable. Total outlay for quarters and freight was $1300. Death valley sent me really nice pieces with half beds intact. The guy that pieced the car together did a remarkable job,but it took him nearly 3 years to finish up his work because of a bad marriage and a boozing problem he had.
In a way it's nice to know 64's are a one off year as far as some of the body design.The downside is the difficulty in finding body parts. I appreciate your struggles. It will be worth it when you are finished.
What color have you picked for it ? I went from original black to 64 OEM white. I stayed with the dark red interior bench seat.

 

Great looking Elco in black, I'm sure it looks awesome in white, too. Mine has had it's fair share of Bondo added along the way as well, probably more than I have even come to realize up to this point. The hull I just picked up is actually a 65 I believe, but for what I need I think this will work. Anyone able to confirm/refute that?

I also agree about building a car that can't be bought out of a catalog, there's definite sense of satisfaction that comes with that. I get that with my Scout and Wagoneer, but man is it nice to work on a 72 C10 sometimes, too!

 

THIS IS THE SAME CAR 12 YEARS LATER IN ORIGINAL WHITE. STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS.

65 and 64 rear quarters have subtle differences. They are not identical, but, one must look hard to notice.

 

Forgot to answer the color question. Haven't decided 100% yet, but I think it may stay white. With all the body work that will have to be done I can promise it won't be black, that's for sure! Impossible to hide small imperfections under black and I am certain to have some I'm sure.

 

I went with white because I live on the gulf coast of florida. it gets really hot 5 months of the year. I don't like A/C, just performance. I also think it's hard to beat a white car for sharp looks. I may return to Cragars but they will be 17s.

 

I will eventually add AC, but that's after some of the "necessities" (body, interior, etc). Going to swap over to a serpentine set up and run an aftermarket AC. Not sure on tires and wheels yet though.

 

New plan of attack

I decided today to go about the replacement of the rear end in a different way. I was thinking about how people shorten the LWB C10's to SWB and decided I was going to use that method instead of trying to de-skin half of my quarters and drilling out pinch welds all around the rear half of the bed. Instead, I think I will go with one straight cut, all the way from one side of the bed to the other. (Think about running the whole car through a giant bandsaw, then welding on an exact rear-end chop from the donor). This will be easier on the donor since it has no frame, fuel tank, brake lines, fuel lines, etc. To cut the back end off of the car's bed, I will probably put the frame on jackstands and removed the rear end and gas tank to I can really get up underneath and have good room to work.

Any thoughts on this process as opposed to what I was thinking about before?

 

That's a novel approach. How much do you intend to knock off? Before you make the cut I suggest you get comfortable under the car and try to consider any possible unintended consequences. I think you could get a good result with careful planning and laying out your marks and control points. After looking at all the damage you have it should save you a lot of work. I hope you take some shots of the process.

 

I want to leave the entire wheel well cutout, but replace the entire quarter panel from there back, so the vertical cut line will probably originate directly behind the wheel well and go up, and over, and across, and back down, and under, and back across...

Also, concerning the bed floor, that's a removable panel, correct? It seems as thought mine is "glued" down somehow (possibly a seam sealer as well as pinch welds??), but I haven't tried to remove it yet, so I'm not sure. It just doesn't seem to have any visible screws around the edge like the front cover over the smuggler's box does. If I can get the bed floor removed without tearing it up, or if there is a replacement bed floor available, I would opt to go that route and save a ton of cutting, and more importantly, welding and grinding to get it back together.

So...anyone out there have a giant band saw?? :beer: If not, I think the tools of deconstruction will be a cut off wheel on a 4.5" angle grinder, a cut off wheel on an air motor, a plasma cutter, sawzall, pneumatic recip saw, and probably any other number of saws and blades I might have laying around. A metal cutting blade on a circular saw would probably give me a good strait cut up the sides of the bed, inside and out, too.