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PHOTO 1: Drip rail moldings are fragile, so take care when removing them. The clip side of the molding is released by once again using the door trim tool and a body hammer.

CHAPTER FIVE

Moldings and Body Lines

I learned a long time ago that engines and related components come out a lot easier after the front sheet metal and valance panel have been removed from the car. It is time to break out the air ratchet and remove a little sheet metal. Doing so, though, may affect the overall body lines of the Charger, so I will need to keep aesthetics in mind.

Consider the Body Lines

What about all those body lines? How well do the doors line up with the fenders or quarter panels? I adjusted the doors for fit a long time ago, and achieving excellent body lines is something I will fuss over later once the Charger is ready to be put back together, so why do I need to bother with any of that now? Thirty years of bumps, curb checks, and bad drivers have all combined to rumple every panel of the Charger. Now, before I remove any of these panels from the car, is the time to rough out the sheet metal and check the body lines.

When I say body lines, I don’t just mean pristine gaps between the fenders and the doors. I’m talking about cases in which a dent that begins on a fender pushes that panel inward, and then leaves a crease across the leading edge of the door before fading away as it moves along the length of the door. I want to be sure the rearmost edge of the fender precisely matches the leading edge of the door. If I remove either of these parts from the car before I match these edges by doing any necessary body repair, I might not notice the discrepancy between the two panels until after the car is painted. And that’s one heck of a time to find that two adjacent panels don’t line up.

PHOTO 2: A straight-on view of a bodyline is not the only view you need to be concerned with.

Look at photo 3. I placed a metal ruler across the opening where the fender meets the door. A nice smooth transition should exist from panel to panel, but because both of these panels are damaged, they don’t line up and the ruler catches on the edge of the fender. This is what I mean when I say the panels need to line up. I want this transition line to be perfect with no deviation in or out at any point along the gap.

If you open the door of your car and see that a portion of the door’s edge is extremely thick in relation to the rest of the edge, you have a poorly repaired panel-to-panel transition. Instead of making sure the panels aligned perfectly by doing a small amount of sheet metal repair, someone used body filler to cover his sloppiness in this instance.

PHOTO 3: This is the same bodyline. The metal ruler catches on the edge of the fender indicating the door does not align properly with the fender.

PHOTO 4: A quick way to check the transitional panel-to-panel alignment is to block sand the areas on both panels where they meet. The unsanded area at the rear of this door indicates the lip is bent inward and must be hammer and dolly worked to achieve proper alignment.

PHOTO 5: Sometimes you have to call the big guns. I use a large slide hammer to realign the rear edge of the fender. Notice I removed the door to gain better access to the repair area.

PHOTO 6: So how do you hold a door shut when the latch has been removed? A pair of welder’s clamping pliers works wonders.

Bodywork 101

Without getting knee-deep into the nuances of body repair, here is a quick and easy way to check the transition of metal from one panel to the next. The arrows in photo 4 indicate the direction of the damage. The rear edge of the door (right side of photo) and the leading edge of the quarter panel (left side of photo) have been block sanded using 40 grit sandpaper to highlight the damage. The scuffed areas along the edges of both panels indicate where the panels line up. The small area of clean paint marked by the series of x’s indicates an area where the door does not line up with the quarter panel. This area along the rear edge of the door must be worked with a hammer and dolly before the door can be removed from the vehicle. The door must also be realigned to ensure a good transition between the two panels. Filling this low area with body filler is a no-no and will result in the above-mentioned thick edge.

This block sanding method can be used to check any transition point on a car where two panels meet. Note: You may want to do what I did in photo 5 and remove the door to gain access to the fender edge once you are ready to repair it. Just be sure to hang the door again and check your work before calling it good. Once you have all of the lines nice and straight, remove the fenders and doors from the car. Don’t pick up that ratchet just yet, though.

Roughing Things Up

The valance panel is part of the sheet metal and must be repaired and aligned along with the rest of the front end sheet metal. I removed the front valance panel earlier to gain better access to the front bumper and grille assembly. The panel is in horrible condition. It has so much damage that it would be nearly impossible to get it right without the aid of the fenders to help with alignment. Before the fenders come off, I need to repair and test fit the valance. Where’s my big hammer?

I haven’t mentioned this before, but my workbench has a wooden top. If you have ever tried pounding sheet metal on a steel workbench, you know why I use a wood-topped bench. It’s quieter.

Working with a large hammer such as a 2½-pound blacksmith’s hammer, I begin roughing out the valance panel to return it to its former shape. Formed sheet metal prefers to be in its original shape, which makes roughing out the panel a little easier.

One of the major problems with this valance panel is a nasty tear on the right side. For now, the best way to handle a tear like this is to use a hammer and dolly to work the metal back into shape along the length of the tear, and then use a pair of double-prong welding pliers (Vise-Grip brand pliers) to hold the torn pieces together. Note: I have an 8-inch length of old railroad rail that makes an ideal portable anvil. It is small enough to move around, yet heavy enough to stay put when subjected to the onslaught of a big hammer.

PHOTO 7: The easiest way to rough out the valance panel is to lay it on the workbench and use a blacksmith’s hammer to knock out the larger dents and reshape the panel.

PHOTO 8: This tear in the valance panel is being hammer worked. Notice the short piece of railroad track under the panel being used as an anvil. Once you straighten the torn metal, you can use a pair of welder’s pliers (Vise-Grips) to hold the torn pieces together.

PHOTO 9: The last areas to repair on the valance panel are found around the parking lamp openings. The fit here is critical as the lamps are shaped to fit the openings and any flaw here will stand out. Also notice the way the metal curves into the opening, because this curve must be duplicated all around the opening.

PHOTO 10: A quick and easy way to mount any panel when test fitting is to use a pair of welder’s pliers to hold the panels together.

PHOTO 11: Notice the hood is still mounted on the Charger. On most other models the hood will have to be removed before the fenders can be removed.

PHOTO 12: Turn indicator lamps mounted in the hood must be removed, along with a few weather strips and seals, before the hood is ready for removal.

PHOTO 13: One of the last steps before removing the hood is to remove the hood hinge springs. Don’t forget to place a prop rod under the hood before removing the springs.

PHOTO 14: The hinges are unbolted from the body and not from the hood. This is a safety measure to insure the hood doesn’t become unstable before we can remove it.

PHOTO 15: Finally the fenders can come off the car. Removing a few bolts along the apron inside the engine compartment, plus a few more up front and a couple at the bottom of the fender, allows this fender to lift up and come off the Charger.

After I’ve roughed out the panel, I can switch to a smaller hammer and dolly to work on the smaller dents. The areas that concern me most are around the parking lamps. The lamps are set into oval-shaped openings, and I must precisely reform the gaps between the lamps and the openings. I take my time when repairing areas like this. Each of the lamps may need to be test fitted several times before the openings are right. Also, notice that the oval openings have rolled edges to give a smooth transition from sheet metal to plastic lamp. These rolled edges must be carefully rebuilt for the repair to be correct.

Test fitting the repaired valance is a simple matter of using a pair of Vise Grip welding pliers to hold the panel into place at the front of the car. In photo 10, I am using the welding pliers to hold the valance panel to the fenders. I accomplish some final fitting after clamping the panel into place.

Remove Hood

You may notice I haven’t said anything about removing the hood yet. On this car, the hood hinges are mounted to the unibody structure, not to the fenders themselves. On most other types of vehicles, the hood has to be removed before the fenders are, because the hinges are mounted directly to the fenders. So let’s talk about removing the hood.

First on the agenda is to remove any rubber seal strips, gaskets, moldings, and latch assemblies mounted to the hood. Again, I use the door trim tool, which works wonders when removing rubber seal strips. The only things out of the ordinary on the Charger are the right- and left-turn lamp indicators mounted in the hood. I remove these along with the wiring, before removing the hood.

I know this sounds backward, but I unbolt the hinges from the car, not from the hood. This allows the hood to remain propped in place until I lift it free of the car. Separating the hood from the hinges leaves the hood unstable and free to slide around.

Remove Fenders

The fender attachment bolts are inside the engine compartment along the length of the fenders, where they overlap the inner fender structure; underneath the fenders at the rear; and at the front, where the fenders attach to the core support. The Charger does not have a fender apron per se, so only a couple of bolts are inside the wheel well compartment.

If you haven’t already disconnected the headlamp wiring connectors, disconnect them now because the headlamp mounting panels come off the car as a part of each fender. I remove the fenders by first lifting the rear corner high enough to clear the mounting studs. Then I slide the front of the fender straight out to the side to clear the core support.

Remove Door

With the fenders and hood removed from the car, you will quickly see how convenient it is to reach the door hinge bolts. Again, four hands are better than two. With a friend holding the door, I remove the bolts from the door side of the hinges. Warning! The doors still weigh a lot, even though they are only shells.

While I’m here, I also remove the lower door hinges—but not before I remove the door hinge springs. The hinge springs are “S”-type springs so they need to be tapped off the hinge using a hammer. On the driver’s side, I gently drive the spring upward with a hammer until it pops free of the hinge. On the passenger side, I drive the spring downward until it pops free. Notice the shape of the spring in photo 19. The top of the spring is rounded, while the bottom of the spring is squared off. The placement of the squared end of the spring determines the direction in which the spring should be tapped to remove it from the hinge. The squared end is always the tapped end.