My car is a 68 malibu. The roof is bad. The donor roof is 69 lemans. I think you just melt out the lead, and drill the spot welds front and rear. But what about the sides. How do the sides attatch to the frame work? Do the drip rails stay with the skin, or do they come off seperate? Any advice or information is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I did a 69 Camaro last year, the sides have alot of seam sealer in the gutter area. Dig it out with a narrow wood chisel, you should be able to see the seam. On the Camaro the gutter stayed on the car. One difficulty will be welding the replacement skin back on. It is not easy to MIG weld down in the gutter and get good welds. We used adhesive and a resistance spot welder
on the sides (and window areas), then MIG'd the sail panel and A pillar.
We used an aftermarket skin, removing the Lemans one to save it will be difficult but not impossible, remove it slowly and carefully.
Some people cut the roof about 2" above the gutter and then overlap the replacement roof so they can do MIG welds on the seam abut 1/2" above the gutter. This way you don't have to get down in the gutter.
I prefer the way I did it, but I had access to a resistance spot welder.

Could you just cut the "a" and "b" pillars and replace the entire roof? Seems like it might be easier than just the skin.

Just a thought.

LK

Could you just cut the "a" and "b" pillars and replace the entire roof? Seems like it might be easier than just the skin.

Just a thought.

LK

I would think so. Thats what I chose to do with my Camaro. Is the LeMans roof identical? If you can, dig the lead out of each and check how the quarters attach and certainly measure very carefully everywhere.

Could you just cut the "a" and "b" pillars and replace the entire roof? Seems like it might be easier than just the skin.

Just a thought.

LK

He could, but the skill level needed is a little higher. Need to get perfect fitup, make sleeves or staggered joints etc.

I re-skinned the roof of my 71 this summer. It was pretty easy. I melted the lead out of the corners and drilled the spot welds out. The front and back also has spot welds, I used a die-grinder cutting tool on them. I just rubbed the cutting wheel over the spot weld a couple of times to cut through the roof skin. The sides had small spot welds down in the bottom of the drip rails so the drip rails stay on the car. I also used the cutting tool there to. Just be careful, the metal is pretty thin. The hard part is cutting the roof skin from the donor roof. I did it the same in the back corners and back. The front corners, front and the sides were harder. The front corners and front had three layers of metal and I had to grind through 2 of them from the bottom. I ground through the bottom on the sides but since the roof skin is very thin there is was easy to go too far. just be careful. Once the donor roof is off the donor car it's very easy to bend, so support it and get a friend to help move it. When I installed the donor roof skin on the car I attached the sides, front, and back with panel bonding adhesive and spot welded the corners. I thought it turn out pretty good considering who did it. I thought it easier than trying to get the a and c pillars cut and welded back in the same place. Also the pillars are made from a couple of pieces so you can't welding the middle without doing some patching.

Thaks for all the responses, even though I called it a hood. The pillars on the lemans are real bad, however the roof skin only has surface rust and no holes.

“Basics of Basic” Roof skin replacement
By Brian Martin


If you remove both front and rear windows and roof moldings. Then clean the sealer out of the gutters and pinch weld areas in the windows. The hardest part is melting the lead out of the sail panel seams. Clean them down to bare metal. You will see the spot welds that are holding the roof on. These spot welds need to be drilled out. Drill them from the top and don't go into the underlying metal, just drill through the one layer of metal right in the middle of the weld. I like to look at this as "Unbolting" the panel, you simply drill out each weld like you were removing a bolt, it really is no difference at all. At each corner of the roof there is a MIG weld or it is Brazed, but those areas need to be cut with a cut off wheel or in the tight spots you can use a burr cutter. You could even cut with a cut off wheel along the spot welds and then after the roof is off the car separate that last bit. Again, destroy the panel you are removing, grind any welds on THIS side and do what ever it takes to the panel you are throwing away so you don't damage the fresh metal below it. I use a long Snap On tools gasket scraper to slip in between the sheets of metal to separate them. After you have the panel removed you need to take a hammer and flatten out the areas that you have drilled out the welds. Then grind with a little 3" 50 grit disc any little pieces of metal that will interfere with the new roof laying flat on the mating surface. Then using a "Roloc" disc clean that mating surface GOOD on both the "new" roof and the car. Then brush or spray a light coat of weld through primer. Let it dry REAL good before you do any welding. And DO NOT apply it heavy, it will be a mutha to weld through.

Pay attention to any sealant or "foam" cushions that the factory put between the panels to support the roof skin. If they got damaged as you separated the panels, you will need to put something there like a thick urethane sealer or something to replicate the soft, NOT stiff support the factory had. BE CAREFUL that you don't have too much, or that you don't have two factory layers (from the "old" roof and the "new" roof) that could cause you LOADS of trouble with fit of the "new" roof.

Now, if you have done a nice clean job of removing the roof, there are only a few holes in it. You can do one of three things to reattach it. You can glue the seams at the gutter and at the window pinch welds and only weld the sail panels and at the corners of the roof. This is how I would do it if I were doing it at home and didn't have the spot welder I do at work. Or you could weld the sail panels and corners with the MIG and then bring the car to a shop with a spot welder to do the pinch welds. Or you could plug weld with the MIG all the pinch welds. I have to say this is HUGE overkill and gluing is the way to go.
If you go the gluing route, forget the part about weld through primer, you will only want it on the areas you WILL be welding. Depending on the brand of panel adhesive you use, you will want bare metal or epoxy primer where the surfaces will be bonded.

Don't ask about bonding the sail panels, you REALLY do need to weld those.

I am sure I left something out, but that is a start.