Sampson

Seems like a lot of us have this problem. The left side of the Radiator Core support is prone to rust damage from leaky batteries. There are not any suitable repo patch panels that I have been able to find and a replacement radiator core support is kind of pricey. Used Pieces that are good are hard to find and pricey. Good used right side pieces are fairly common but are not an exact fit. They are a mirror image of the left side. I had a good right side and kept looking at ways I could use it to repair my damaged left side. I do not have a lot of metal working experience and my welding skills were/are weak at best. My body shop had fabricating and repairing my unit right up there with buying a repo replacement price wise. I have been wanting a wire feed welder for a while so I decided this was the opportunity to buy one. For the cost of the welder I could do the repair for less than I would pay to have someone else do it and still have a welder For those of you like me who have more time than money come along for the ride. I probably have about 32 hours in this repair and $300.00 including the welder. Here is what I started with.
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I have drilled out the spot welds in this pic and the piece is almost ready to cut loose from the Radiator core Support.


side view. I pried the 2 pieces apart slightly so you can get a better view of the rust damage.

The blue tape is the cut line where I will cut the damaged area away from the Radiator core support. I used a high speed die grinder to make this cut. You can see where I have started the cut in the lower right corner.



damage left side brace is top compared with right side that will be used for the replacement. It is a little hard to tell by this pic but the spot weld holes are on the top of the left side piece and on the bottom of the right side piece. The threaded holes are on the opposite sides of where they need to be.


Here I have cut the right edge with the threaded bolts out of the old brace. I cut the same amount of material from the new brace and welded it into the left side of the brace. I left the threaded edge on the right side of the new brace alone but the threaded holes will not be used. This edge will be welded through the spot weld holes in the headlight bucket drilled out earlier. You can see at the top of the new bracket I have split the stamping into fingers. This is another area that does not line up because of the mirror image problem with the stamping. I had to cut corresponding fingers in the mating piece. the fingers will be overlapped and hammered in place and welded back.

Bottom view of new brace with patch welded in.

this is a picture of the radiator core support with the old piece cut out. It is cleaned and ready for the new brace to be grafted in place. The bottom right of the picture shows the fingers cut in this piece that will correspond with the fingers in the brace.

Picture of new brace welded in place. Fingers on each piece were bent over the position of the corresponding finger and welded in place.

welding complete.






You would have to look close to spot the repair. Good enough for my daily driver and strong as new. Lots of measure 2-10 times scratch your head and weld 1 time in this job.

HonestDave

Very interesting. Somebody gave me a new Miller mig welder, still in the box. I've been pondering when I'm going to learn how to use it. I've got no shortage of welding to be done on my red rocket.

Sampson

I have done a little (very little) stick welding in the past. Watched a couple of u tube vids and got out some scap metal and started practicing. It is pretty easy to get in a rhythm after a few practice sessions.

HonestDave

This welder I got is a wire feed, and I think it wants a bottle of gas to go with it. Looks like hoses and regulator in the box with everything else still in the plastic. Some sort of dolly in another box. I keep waffling on whether to learn to weld, sell the welder and pay for the trunk pan, or sell the car to someone who likes to weld. Depending on my mood, it could go almost any way on any given day.
It's encouraging to see the results of your effort, though.
May have to push myself a bit. I hope my laziness doesn't win out !!

joe_padavano

Well done and exceptionally well documented. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Hoffman2099

Very nice. Thanks for sharing!