Keith -
I am in the final 10% of an aluminum panel un-tweaking operation. What did
you back into?
NOTE: You may not like the results- attempt at your own risk. If you like
the look of a smooth, pristine panel, you'd better buy one and replace the
damaged one. This procedure isn't going to make it look new without lots of
bondo and fairing (which is baaaaad). You will probably want to finish your
work with some paint and primer - matching original faded paintwork may be
difficult.
It's pretty straightforward and >>I<< can live with the results. Chicks
DON'T dig body damage. When you bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate the
Birmabrite on the outside of your cherished Land Rover, you are tempering(
hardening) the aluminum alloy, such that you will get compound folds and/or
tearing when you try to straighten it. You must first anneal the folded
areas before you bend/pound/whack/pop/push/coax them back into a proper Land
Rover shape. Enter the pig...
Step 1: Goto the grocery store and buy some Lard - I had to look in the
Mexican food section; apparently Thriftway considers lard Mexican food.
Scared of that.
Step 2: Get a propane torch (not one of those carburetted hi temp jobs).
Step 3: Assemble your panel-beating toolkit. I got a body hammer at a
garage sale years ago that has a very nice wide flat head. You will want a
STEEL dolly to support the backside. I also bought a bodywork kit at NAPA
for $17.00 with 4 or 5 dollies that have all kinds of curves - not really
vital for most LR work and three different hammers, with different
sized/shaped double heads. Find a big heavy flat chunk of steel- a short
section of railroad track might work. Not too big -you might need to
squeeze it into some tight quarters. The NAPA kit had one dolly with a flat
side that I dressed on some flat wet/dry. Make sure it has a FLAT side and
no sharp edges - bevel them a tiny bit to avoid digging into the back of the
panel.
Step 4: Clean the panel inside and out.
Step 5: Apply lard AS THINLY AS POSSIBLE to the folded/crumpled parts of
the panel. If the aluminum is folded, put the lard only on the creased
part. Less is more here - too much just melts and runs down and drips on
something. You want to be able to see the lard before and during the
application of heat.
Step 6: Starting at the bottom of the panel, apply heat with the propane
torch. Play the heat back and forth across the backside of the bend,
watching the lard on the outside. As you get the aluminum hot, the lard
will liquefy, smoke, and evaporate/bubble. MOVE THE TORCH. Repeat on the
unheated areas. Let the aluminum cool naturally - do not quench or
otherwise accelerate the cooling. You are annealing the work-hardening of
the bent aluminum. When you anneal, say, a file to make a knife blade from,
you must anneal it by getting it really hot and then cooling it as slowly as
possible, like overnight. Luckily, Birmabrite doesn't need that kind of
time frame.
Step 7: Gross-forming, unfolding. Using your creative energies, you are
going to try to get the panel MORE Land Rover shaped. Start at any damaged
edges (like the bottom of the wing or rear quarter panel). You may have to
exert considerable leverage to the edge to get it straight - If you just
grab it and try to tweak it with your hands, you will be applying a large
leverage across the whole panel, possible making something worse. I've had
good luck using various sized adjustable open-end wrenches to apply
localized leverage to a bent edge. Oftentimes, lining up an edge gets other
parts in order. I've used big ass C-clamps to exert a corrective force on
the back of a folded panel, with the back supported by a dolly and the
outside bridged across the dent with a section of 2x4. A small jack or
other bracing against the frame might provide a hard point against which you
can push. Depending on what you tweaked, you might need to be very creative
to get the initial untweaking done. For bumpers and crossmembers, I welded
up a big fork with a handle. There is a >1/4 inch slot between two pieces
of angle iron, and I can twist sheet metal in two axes using a little heat
and some leverage.
Step 8: Panel beating. Using a light touch, with the dolly behind your
work, knock the folds, bends, ripples, and dents flat and smooth. If you
try to get everything perfectly flat, you might end up stretching the panel
from the combination of the initial bends and the subsequent hammering and
flattening. I haven't found a good way to "shrink" aluminum if it gets too
pounded out, but there are probably some tricks out there. Shoot for smooth
over flat. Use a worklamp set up at 90 degrees to the panel to highlight
high spots. Keep the face of the hammer parallel to the panel. If
something won't flatten, try annealing it again. Remember those curved
dollies I mentioned? One worked quite well on the curve at the upper edge
of the front wing.
Step 9: Prime and paint. Clean off the lard residue and sand with some
medium wet dry. You could use bondo, but the next time you dork it up,
what's gonna happen to that bondo? A few coats of primer ( I've had good
luck with Zynolyte Synthetic Chromate primer
http://www.zynolyte.com/zynolyte/tipspages/syntheticchromate_tips.asp ),
sanding between coats, and top off with a couple of coats of your favorite
color. I find some bronze wool on the finish replicates the dull look of
faded paint.
That's my braindump - lemme know if I omitted anything.
Todd Schlemmer
Vashon Island, WA
www.ozedeph.com
-----Original Message-----
From: lro-admin@koan.team.net [mailto:lro-admin@koan.team.net]On Behalf
Of Keith Tanner
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 8:07 AM
To: lro-koan.team.net
Subject: [lro] Colour match for wheels and Birmabright unbending...
I'm finally getting to repair the results of my last Moab trip. Two
questions:
- what's the paint that's a good match for the off-white used on Series
wheels? I need to replace my spare tire and the wheel is rusty.
- any tips on successfully un-crumpling a tweaked rear panel? Should heat
be involved or do I just start bending?
Tanks!
Keith
------------
Keith's page de home:
http://keith.miata.net
------------
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