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My Dragon (2) Datsun 521


DanielC

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This thread really starts here.

http://community.ratsun.net/topic/51488-1971-datsun-521-pickup-project/

 

Before I even saw the thread, Hainz posted this. "Daniel C bet this and save it"  I think he meant "get" not "bet".

 

My first thought, "I already have four 521 trucks, and a spare cab"  But after thinking about it, I sent Wesselus a PM, saying "If nobody gets this truck, before you scrap it, PM me".  Monday morning, Feb 11, 2013. he did.

 

So on Monday, I went to the bank, and then out to the outer limits of Canby, and looked at the truck.  when I got there, Wes said "thanks for coming out.  You are the first to actually show up"   I looked at the truck, and had it delivered to my house on Tuesday. 

 

So, today, I was waiting for it to get warm enough to paint parts for Ratsun Datsun, this thread.

http://community.ratsun.net/topic/30606-my-ratsun-datsun-521/

It was warm enough to pressure wash this truck, that I am calling Dragon 2, or D2 for short. 

Too many words, not enough pictures.  

The engine, it is a L-18 engine, unknown condition.

EngineBay.JPG

 

The front of the truck.

Front.JPG

 

Some fender damage and rust.

LfFenderFront.JPG

 

The bumper has been pushed in.

RtFrontMark+Park.JPG

 

The right door has a dent.

RtDoor.JPG

 

Right bedside looks OK.

RtBedside.JPG

 

The back of the truck.

Rear.JPG

 

The left bed side.

LfBedSide.JPG

 

Left Door, no dent, but,

LfDoor.JPG

 

Rust spot in left door.

LfDoorLowFront.JPG

 

Driver's side interior, and the cab smelled of old cigarette smoke.

LfCabInside.JPG

 

It had a retractable seat belt put in.

LfOutSeatBelt.JPG

 

The engine serial number, it is a L-18

l18-539833.JPG

 

It has the wrong oil filter.

EngineFram.JPG

 

Other side on the interior.

RtCabInside.JPG

 

Has damaged parcel tray.

RtCabInside2.JPG

 

But the seat needs help.

Seat.JPG

 

And this is how I move it for now.

D2+Ratsun.JPG

 

I did get some more paint on Ratsun Datsun parts today.

This evening. I was curious about the engine compression.    On Wednesday, I did charge the battery, anticipating the compression check.  I did that tonight.  #1, 175  #2, 70  #3, 155 #4, 185.   Next, I took an air hose to spark plug hole adaptor, and put #2 to TDC, compression/firing stroke, and blew compressed air into #2.   Heard air leaking into #3, and also into the crankcase. 

 

It looks like I am going to pull the cylinder head, and see what is going on.

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Today, I pulled the cylinder head.  The good news, it is a A87 head, with bigger ports, and it is a peanut head.

the bottom surface was recently machined, and is flat within .003.

 

The bad news.  The camshaft turned pretty hard, with the rocker arms removed.  I loosened the cam towers, and the cam then turned easily.  I then checked the top surface with my straight edge, and it rocked on the center.   Holding down one end of the straight edge, I could get about a .015 feeler gauge under the straight edge, on the other end.  There is no evidence of the top of the head being machined.

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A bit of an update.  I took the head to Ricks's cylinder head in Milwaukie, Oregon, on February 20, 2013.  They think they can save the head. 

And totally off topic, my elderly mom fell down on Friday, the 22nd, after visiting the doctor, and she went to the hospital.  I went visit her in the evening, and on the way home, my daily driver, a Ford Aerostar started making an ugly noise every time I stepped on the brakes.

So, on Saturday, I went and got new pad and shoes for the Aerostar, in the morning, and that afternoon, I went to visit mom again, and after that out to Sherwood Pick-n-Pull, and got some good brake disks off some Aerostars in the yard.

 

OK, back to Dragon two.  It had some missing bolts in the engine front cover, and some of the head bolts looked a little sketchy, and I got some of the bolts out of a 620 there.

 

Sunday, I cleaned parts, both for the Aerostar brakes, and the bolts I got for Dragon two.  Then I pulled D2 out in to the sun, and removed the seat, and the transmission.  I vacuumed the cab again, where the seat was, and cleaned a bunch of gunk off the transmission, and then also I put an old cylinder head on the block that was in D2, and cleaned the block.

 

On Monday, I worked on Aerostar brakes.  Got disks taken to a machine shop, and the rotors were turned while I waited, and then I put the turned brake disks, with new pads on the front of the Aerostar.

 

This morning, I took the rear drums off the Aerostar, the shoes have a lot of good lining on them, and put it back together.

 

Back to Dragon Two.  Some of the engine brackets, pulleys, and other parts had a lot of gunk on them, and some rust.  I put the rusty parts in electrolysis a few days ago, and pulled them out today, and then did a light scrubbing with a wire brush, or some steel wool, and phosphoric acid solution, to remove any remaining rust.  Then a light sandblast, and finally I put some primer on the parts.

EngineParts2.JPG

 

Edited by DanielC
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On the 27th, Wednesday, I cleaned, sandblasted, and primered some alternator brackets, and cleaned off some extra engine bolts I had in some carb cleaner.

The three studs broke off the bottom of the exhaust manifold.  I have the manifold sitting in electrolysis, to try to loosen up the rust around the studs some.  I also ordered a rear left emergency brake cable from the friendly local Nissan dealer.  It was available, but ships from Japan.

The truck had a 1 7/8" trailer hitch ball on it, and a rusty 2" ball on the floor, in the cab.  The trailer hitch ball was put into a molasses solution,  in a crock pot, and derusted that way.  took the ball out of the molasses, a quick scrub under running water, and a wirebrushing, and it is good to go.

The top two bolts that hold the transmission mount to the frame were not there, and both holes had a small piece of gravel in them, and I pried that out with a small screwdriver, and then chased the threads in the holes.  Also got some 3/8-24 bolts, and washers for the mount. and a 5/16-24 bolt, and nut for the drive line to transmission flange.

Yesterday, I sanded some primer surfacer on taillight frames, and dash board vents, and sprayed another couple of coats of primer surfacer on those parts.  The plan for today is to resand the taillight frames, and dash vents, and hopefully paint them, and the motor mount brackets, and some battery hold downs in black.

I want to paint the plate between the engine and transmission grey, and see it I can get a close match to the stock Datsun "aircleaner" blue on the air cleaner bracket.  I am thinking of seeing If I can also come up with a close match to the dark blue for the alternator brackets and the pulleys, and water pipe.

But I need to quit writing about it, and do it.

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On the 27th, Wednesday, I cleaned, sandblasted, and primered some alternator brackets, and cleaned off some extra engine bolts I had in some carb cleaner.

The three studs broke off the bottom of the exhaust manifold.  I have the manifold sitting in electrolysis, to try to loosen up the rust around the studs some.  I also ordered a rear left emergency brake cable from the friendly local Nissan dealer.  It was available, but ships from Japan.

The truck had a 1 7/8" trailer hitch ball on it, and a rusty 2" ball on the floor, in the cab.  The trailer hitch ball was put into a molasses solution,  in a crock pot, and derusted that way.  took the ball out of the molasses, a quick scrub under running water, and a wirebrushing, and it is good to go.

The top two bolts that hold the transmission mount to the frame were not there, and both holes had a small piece of gravel in them, and I pried that out with a small screwdriver, and then chased the threads in the holes.  Also got some 3/8-24 bolts, and washers for the mount. and a 5/16-24 bolt, and nut for the drive line to transmission flange.

Yesterday, I sanded some primer surfacer on taillight frames, and dash board vents, and sprayed another couple of coats of primer surfacer on those parts.  The plan for today is to resand the taillight frames, and dash vents, and hopefully paint them, and the motor mount brackets, and some battery hold downs in black.

I want to paint the plate between the engine and transmission grey, and see it I can get a close match to the stock Datsun "aircleaner" blue on the air cleaner bracket.  I am thinking of seeing If I can also come up witha close match to the dark blue for the alternator brackets and the pulleys, and water pipe.

But I need to quit writing about it, and do it.

 

Do yourself a favor, if the exhaust bolts/studs have anything left to grab onto with a pair of vise grips, heat the exhaust manifold up till it glows with an acetylene torch, not the bolt, the manifold, hit the side of the manifold near the hole/stud with a hammer, and turn the bolt out, this is the best and only way I know that it will actually come out without a lot of effort.

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No back transmission bolts!?!

How long would that been ok driving with ha!

 

I wanted to ask you about the back emergency brake

Cable. You see a few month ago I was driving on a dirt road

And ran over some old farm equipment that happen to be metal and pipe like

Cutting my emergency brake about 4in from the right back hub.

 

I haven't got around to it so I still dont have my ebrake

My question is what do I need to do to get to it?. Its located in the hub right? I'm assuming it is.

And whatts does the part you got look like?

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Wayno, I understand patience in removing broken bolts.  But thanks for the tip.  The reason I am doing the electrolysis is because it does remove the rust, but it is a slow process.  I have taken parts like a hood catch, that are totally rusted solid, and with electrolysis, made then work almost like new.  they still have rust pits, but the moving parts move.

 

The missing bolts were between the transmission mount to the frame, or crossmember.  There are normally four bolts, two on top, and two that go in from the front side of the crossmember.

You have to pull the brake drum off to get to the emergency brake cable.  And the new cable was estimated to take 60 or so days from Japan.   I am guessing it is on a ship somewhere in the Pacific.   Hopefully it will get to a port in the United States NOT being closed down by a longshoreman strike.

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In the last few days, I have been painting engine parts.  Saturday, I painted the plate that goes between the engine and transmission grey,

On Sunday, I went to Sherwood Pick-n-Pull, and found a Nissan jack, and handle in a 620 truck.  Later, I went to Portland south Pick-n-Pull, and found a 521 carburetor on a 620 truck.  Sunday evening, I got a piece of newspaper, and ruler, and a protractor, and laid out 32 radial lines on a piece of newspaper, then used that as a guide to put masking tape on the transmission plate.

Monday was warm enough to paint some more, in the afternoon.  I painted some stuff green, and then painted some stuff black.  Here is most of the stuff I painted.  Four battery hold downs, Dashboard top vents, and ashtray insert, alternator brackets, two pair of taillight frames, and the two brackets on the engine block, that hold the motor mounts.

PaintedBlackParts.JPG

 

So, here is the engine to trans plate.

FirstSun.JPG

 

I painted the alternator brackets Dragon green, the top brackets I just laid on one side, sprayed them, and after lunch turned the brackets painted side down, and sprayed the other side.

AltTop.JPG

 

After painting one side of the bottom alternator bracket, I just stuck a M8-1.25 bolt in to two pieces of steel, and did this to paint the rest of the bottom bracket.

AltBottom.JPG

 

This morning, it was too cold to paint.  I chased the threads on the engine block for the engine mount brackets, and the alternator brackets.   I also chased threads on the truck's frame for the rubber motor mounts, and got some more bolts and washers to replace missing parts.

 

I also cleaned up a air cleaner top I got at Pick-n-Pull, because the paint was in pretty good shape.  I went to a local auto paint store, Quality Paint in Oregon City, and asked if it would be possible to find a color chip to match the air cleaner top.  The store came up with looks like a pretty good match. 1968-1969 Volkswagon Chrome Blue, code L51K.

 

Then I went to D510 Addicts place, and bought a used W53 cylinder head from him, and then picked up the warped A87 head from Rick's cylinder head. 

 

Then to Gladstone Nissan.  they called on Monday, and said the emergency brake cable I ordered was in.  While there, I also ordered some rubber brake adjustor covers, some rubber hood bumpers, and a shift boot.  Andrea, the girl looking up parts was very helpful, and when I asked about a "ratsun discount", seemed almost excited to give me the discount.  Did I mention Andrea was very helpful?

 

Tonight, I cleaned the cylinder head I got from D510Addict a little.

Edited by DanielC
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Emergency brake work.

When I got Dragon 2, the emergency (hand) brake did not work.  The left rear cable was broken.  The temperature was cool, so I parked it in the sun.

Rtside.JPG

 

Obviously, the truck need to be jacked up.   Even though my jack is pretty new, I still put the wheel and tire under the frame of the truck.  if the jack fails, the wheel holds the truck up.  

WheelUnder.JPG

 

This is not a stock 521 brake drum.  Does anyone recognize it? 

BrakeDrum.JPG

 

Brake drum off, rear shoe removed.

OneBrakeShoe.JPG

 

Here is why the hand brake did not work.

BrokenCable.JPG

 

The inner cable did not want to come out, so I cut the cable close to the backing plate.  The outer cable was also rusted to the backing plate, notice the Vice-Grips clamped on it.

CableCut.JPG

 

Then I used a slide hammer to pull the inner cable out.

CableSlidehammer.JPG

 

Then some penetrating oil, and twisting, and working the outer cable out.

 

With the cable finally removed, I used a rifle brush to clean out the bore in the backing plate.

riflebrush.JPG

 

I then wire brushed the frame bracket on the truck.  After this picture, I rattle canned painted the bracket.

FrameBracket.JPG

 

I also removed the brake adjuster, cleaned it, and put some white lithium grease on it, and on the new cable, and a little on the the cable, where it goes into the backing plate,

 

Now, I needed to get under the truck, to adjust the left rear brake, and then adjust the emergency cable slack.  I had to move the wheel and tire, so I put these blocks under the rear axle.

Jack&Blocks.JPG

 

The emergency brake adjuster is located inside the left frame rail, just above where this cottage cheese container is sitting on the ground.

AdjustLocation.JPG

 

Here is the adjuster. 

Adjuster.JPG

 

The long rectangular thing is the adjuster.  There is a lock nut on the rear side of it.  Loosen the lock nut, and turn the adjuster.  Tighten the lock nut when done.

 

I also put this 2" trailer hitch ball on the truck.  When I got Dragon Two, this ball was sitting on the wet floor, and covered with rust, and the nut on the ball was rust frozen to the ball shank.  I put the ball in a crock pot, with molasses solution, and then a light wire brushing cleaned it up.

TrailerBall.JPG

 

Edited by DanielC
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Dragon Two has water leaking into the cab.  When I got it, a lot of the seam sealer in the roof drip rail was missing.  I picked at it, and almost all of the remaining sealer just came off, so I did remove the rest of it.  That was last Friday.

 

Saturday, I pulled Dragon Two back out of of the carport, where I was working on it, and moved the engine for it out into the sunlight, on its stand.  I have painted a few brackets, and put them on the engine.

EngineD2.JPG

 

I also did some work on the exhaust manifold, removing broken bolts.

ExManifold.JPG

 

I then moved the engine into the garage to do some work in it, mainly inspection.  The oil pan has a few dents, and some brazing on it to repair a hole.  It was also dirty.  I just dropped the oil pan into my parts washer to soak in solvent.  The oil pickup also has the screen on it smashed, and was slightly bent.

 

There was a lot of oily gunk on the inside of the transmission bell housing, that has been cleaned, and I was thinking about replacing the rear oil seal.  I pulled the rear main bearing cap, and there was a lot of copper showing on the bearing, but the crank looked good.   I put the cap back on, Mainly to keep parts together, and I used EricJB's main seal installer to put the old seal back in, for now.  The seal installer works really good.  See this thread for one.

http://community.ratsun.net/topic/49445-main-seal-installer/

 

The oil pan has dents, and a small hole.  Do I want to dissassemble the engine, and replace the bearings, I have not decided yet.

 

On Sunday, I was tired of engine work, and did some sanding on the roof, in and near the drip rail. there was also a rust spot in the center front of the roof, above where the interior rear view mirror is.

RoofRustHole.JPG

 

A good part of the roof is pretty straight, with no oil canning, but there area few dents.  I need to work them. 

 

On Monday, March 11, I got the cylinder head I bought from D510 Addict back from Ricks cylinder head.

 

On Tuesday, I put it together.  To save some money, I took the cam towers off the head, and all the valve stuff, except the valves, so they could do a valve job. 

If you read the beginning of this thread, you may remember i had low compression on #2.  #1, and #4 were good, and #3 was marginal.  #2 cylinder had a badly burnt, and warped exhaust valve.  Because of that, I could not evaluate the condition of the piston rings by doing a compression test.   I decided to put the engine together enough to do one.  I put the assembled cylinder on the engine, put the flywheel back on the engine, and bolted the transmission and starter back on the engine, and then with the engine sitting on some blocks, and being held by a hoist, hooked up a battery, and did a compression test. 

CompTest.JPG

#1, 180.  #2, 195.  #3, 190.  #4, 185.   I am thinking the rings may be OK, Still not sure about the bearings.

 

The wind shield had some extra sealer gooped on the upper corners.  I poked into the wind shield weather strip near the corner, and in some spots, by sliding a knife under the weatherstrip, it went all the way through the weatherstrip without cutting any thing.  I pulled the right top corner of weather strip off, pretty much without cutting anything.

WindshieldLeak.JPG

 

I know the wind shield rubber is bad, so I cut the rest of the rubber, and removed the wind shield, and started to clean the wind shield flange up.

WindshieldRemoved.JPG

 

And we are up to date Wednesday morning.

Edited by DanielC
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I spent the last few days working on the roof, and windshield opening.  I have a few rust issues to deal with, and a few dents.  I also wanted to sand all the paint off the roof, because there were a few rust spots showing through.   After sanding the paint off, even thought the paint looked pretty good, there were many more rust spots, that have not broke through the paint yet.

 

Most of the paint I sanded off by hand with a long board, with 180 grit paper.  This can be difficult to do, because the roof is pretty flat, and wants to oil can, if you put a lot of pressure, or even a moderate amount of pressure on it.  I also needed a way to support the roof, for removing some dents.

I made this post, that had a table on top to hold a sandbag.

RoofPostTop.JPG

 

This is how I hold the bottom of it.

RoofPost&jack.JPG

 

Dent removal, or at least reduction. 

A lot of dents in the roof of almost any car are "oil can" dents, one area is pushed down, and the metal rises in another place, and slightly creases.  In this picture, you can see three semi circles, that have paint sanded off them.

RoofDents.JPG

 

The paint inside the semi circles is pretty much untouched, by the long board, seen to the top of the picture.  This is the low area.  That has forced the metal high as shown by the paint sanded off the semi circles.   With the post and sandbag holding pressure up on the roof inside, on the low areas, using an old leaf spring, and and lightly hammering it like this, directly on the high spot, or crease,

Hammer&Spring.JPG

 

Most of the crease is removed.  The pressure from the sandbag under the roof forces the low area up, and you work the high area down.  In this picture the hammer should be a little lower, but it was difficult to hold the hammer, the spring, and the camera to take the picture.

 

This is a rust spot that is typical of many more on the roof.

RustSpot.JPG

 

This spot showed up after sanding the paint off.

 

After removing more paint and primer, this is the same rust spot.

RustSpot2.JPG

 

Those, and many other rust spots will get more attention a little later.

 

This is what the roof looks like now.

RoofDents2.JPG

 

I still need to do a little more work on dents on the roof, at this point, I have just used the post to hold the inside, and the spring and hammer in a few areas.  There are some areas neat the edge of the roof, that will have to be filled, or a least a lot of high build primer.  I also found a pinhole in the back edge of the roof, near the driver, that needs filling., and there is still this issue at the front of the roof. 

RoofRustHole.JPG

 

Edited by DanielC
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I've been reading a book about bumping metal, pretty sure that the title of the book is

'Metal bumping' but after reading it i stared looking at dents in every car. With that being said I

Checked out my truck and mostly the roof because I knew the reast needs work

I don't have to many dents but the ones I do have would be easy to get out

But I had trouble applying pressure to the underside.

 

 

Never would have thought about doing what you did..

Great work!

I'm learning that's what I like!

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Back to some roof repairs, and dealing with Photobucket changes.

This was a pin hole in the rear of the roof.

RoofPinHole.JPG

 

Yesterday, I welded the hole up, and ground off the excess metal.

PinHoleWeld.JPG

 

To weld the hole, I used a piece of flattened copper pipe to back up the hole, from the inside of the roof.  the hole was located far enough away from the headliner that I could get to the backside of the weld with the copper.

 

Now, I need to deal with this.

RoofFrontRust%20Out.JPG

 

The area close to the rust out was high, and I ground it down a little, and then picked the rust out from under the roof metal.  There is another small piece of metal, under the roof sheet metal, part of the mirror mount I think.

RoofRustOut2.JPG

 

Edited by DanielC
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A quick update.  I plan on adding more pictures later, Photobucket is considerably harder to use since the changes.

 

Sometime, before I got Dragon Two, some battery acid was spilled on the inner fender.  The battery tray brackets were rusted badly on the bottom, and the piece of metal that goes between the two fender mounted brackets was almost rusted through.  The battery tray brackets were removed, and put in molasses, but I think they are going to need replacing, or extensive patching.  But it should be pretty easy to do, with them out of the truck.  i have been removing old paint and rust off the inside of the right inner fender.  I also removed the engine room electrical harness, the relays, voltage regulator, and fuel line.  I have not yet decided if I want to remove the brake and clutch hydraulic lines yet.

 

The oil pan had some pretty bad dents in it, and a patch brazed on it one area, and after cleaning, it has a small leak.  the oil pickup was also damaged, inside the oil pan.  I have an old rusted out oil pan, that I am experimenting on fixing, by cutting a new piece of metal to replace the rusted out section.  The old oil pan is basically scrap, so it is more valuable as something to figure out how to repair, than actually repairing, and I still have a good chance of salvaging it.

The oil pan I am practising on.

OilPanHoles%20.JPG

 

This is the oil pan held up to a light, to show more holes.  Not much to lose, if I cannot save this.

OilPanHoles3.JPG

 

This is the piece of metal I made to patch the bottom of the pan.

PatchOutside.JPG

 

 

I made a patch for the front of the roof rust out, and welded it in.  It has warped the roof a bit, and I am torn between removing the roof liner, to see if hammering and working the weld will remove some of the distortion, or not.  The other option is to use plastic filler on the roof.   I cannot get to the front weld of the patch anyway, because of the inner structure of the roof.

 

 

 

 

Edited by DanielC
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I have been working on getting the cab sealed on Dragon Two.  The windshield leaked, and the weather strip for the windshield was torn in several places.  The windshield was then pried up, and several types of sealer were forced under it, and that made the problem worse.

The roof had a rust out above the rear view mirror, and two small pinholes.  Also the seam sealer was missing on about half of the drip rail, and was easily removed in the places where it was not yet gone.   The roof has been welded, and finally, today, I got some primer on it.

RoofPrime1.JPG

 

Another view

RoofPrime2.JPG

 

I also cleaned some rusty areas in the windshield opening, and primed that.

WindshieldPrime.JPG

 

Now that I have primer on the roof, and windshield opening, I can put new seam sealer on the drip rail, and a few other places.  Then paint, and put the windshield back in, with a new gasket from Wayno.

 

I have also been removing rust from the engine bay.   I think sometime in its life, Dragon Two had its battery spill some acid, and the battery tray was damaged pretty bad, and there was a lot of rust, near the battery tray, but also on the fire wall, and on the shelf where the fuse block mounts. 

This is what the engine bay looks like, now, but there is a lot more work to be done before primer and paint.

EmptyBay.JPG

 

Edited by DanielC
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We are having really good weather for late March, and early April, and I am working on getting the cab of Dragon two sealed up.  This morning, I put seam sealer on the drip rail, and in four spots where body panel join at the windshield opening.  I also put some body filler on the center front weld patch, and some smaller dents, that are difficult to get access to.

Right side windshield opening.

SeamSealer1.JPG

 

Left side windshield opening.

SeamSealer2.JPG

 

Center roof body filler.

PlasticFiller1.JPG

 

The smaller dents

PlasticFiller2.JPG

 

Edited by DanielC
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