Well, if you remember, about a month ago I posted concerning my warped 66 roof.

I'm getting my fenders, doors, trunklid & a few smaller Items back from Carponents Inc. in MI next week(www.ecoatking.com). He has this cool e-coating process which strips off paint & rust, and electrostatically applies PPG epoxy primer.

I mentioned to him about my roof problem, and am gonna have him e-coat the new roof before I install it. I did find a roof in WI, and plan to have it shipped to MI for the e-coating, before I even see it!

Anyway, this guy said I would be better off replacing the skin & substructure, instead of just the skin, he said it should be easier, and if done right, no one will ever know.

I just started doing metal work this summer, I'm pretty good at it, but this job scares the hell outta me!

I need more advice on how to proceed?

Replace just the skin? Or the whole damn roof?

Which way will be easier to line up?

I'm leaning towards replacing the skin only, but worried that might be the harder way to go, both in work, and line-up.

Please advise!!

Just the skin would be much easier, the alignment issues with the whole roof are enormous. I would forget about having the roof primered first. You want them to send you the WHOLE roof and then YOU remove the skin.

Remove the skin from your car first, this way you'll get some practice. With the windows removed, clean the pinch weld (the area that the skin is spot welded in). Scrape out the seam sealer from the drip rails. Then even sand it or spot sand blast the pinch welds. I knwo you are probably pretty gun shy about using the sand blaster but if you JUST do the pinch welds you will be alright http://www.chevelles.com/forum/smile.gif. Now you will be able to see all the spot welds, there will be about a hundred or so holding the top on, they are just like bolts, you now "unscrew" them by drilling them out.

What do you think? email me direct if I don't answer you here.
buickfam@aol.com

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1965 Buick Gran Sport Convertible
1965 Buick Skylark H/T

You want them to send you the WHOLE roof and then YOU remove the skin.

Yeah, that is how I'm gonna recieve the roof, but it will be dipped and e-coated before I remove the skin. I think it's worth it ,for me anyway, to do it this way. Expensive, but I would rather have a nice clean piece to start with, rather than risk damaging another roof by trying to get it down to bare metal.

The guy who is going to e-coat it (www.ecoatking.com), suggested to swap the entire roof, I think mainly because I asked him to remove the skin. I just think he did'nt want to say no, for fear that I would'nt give him the business to e-coat it!

I have one question that's been bothering me about these welds. I have all the spotwelds cleaned up & marked ready to drill. However, there are pinch marks on the other surfaces 90 degrees from the spot welds, in the windsheild & back glass channels. I don't know if these are some sort of tack welds, or pinch marks from some kind of fixture used during the welding process. They look like they were made with a sharp pointed tool, and they are about 1/16" deep.

Any Ideas on what these are? Do I need to drill these out also?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I can e-mail you some pictures.

I'm sure I'll have many more questions when I actually start working on this.

Thanks,
Later

[This message has been edited by ETD66SS (edited 03-08-2001).]

Ecoating the entire roof sounds fine, but remove the skin by your self. I suspect the guy is wisely turning you down because he is not capable to do the job. And it would be VERY fragile to ship.

Email me the photos, but I suspect that they are dents from vinyl top nails or something of that nature. If you miss some of these welds (bolts) you can always drill them out when you find them (unbolt them).



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1965 Buick Gran Sport Convertible
1965 Buick Skylark H/T

Do yourself a favor, and buy a spot weld drilling bit and lots of spare cutters.

I did this job on a GTO a few years ago and started with a regular drill but went and got a spot weld driller about 1/8 of the way through it. Even if it had been a hundred bucks it would have been worth it.

BTW, I replaced the whole roof on the GTO, it was easier to handle the roof with the supports in place. Less chance of it bending, plus fewer spot welds to drill out.
If I remember right, I cut the windshield posts off near the bottom and used a cardboard set of windows made using the originals as templates (Front and rear glass)for alignment.
If you do just the skin this wouldn't be necessary, but to be safe, take lots of measurements like door gap when closed, diagonal distances across window openings and just about any other easy to diagram, diagonal measurement you can think of.

Tough job, but gawd what fun. Ain't nothing like cutting the roof off of a perfectly good car http://www.chevelles.com/forum/smile.gif

Good luck

K



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64 2 Door HT 6-230 and a 'Glide (To be replaced by a big block, already found a 402 :) )
Formerly 71 Elco