<VV> welding up drilled spot welds

[Larry Forman]

Hello Ramon,
First, how did you "drill" out the spot welds?   If you used a drill, 
that was your first mistake.  Do a Google check for "Spot Weld Cutter" 
or grinder and you will find nice cutter bits that will allow grinding 
or cutting out just the spot weld and not drill a hole into the mating 
panel.   You might need to mount the cutter in a spot weld cutter tool, 
or you might be able to get by using a router and carefully adjust the 
depth so you only get through the first layer of metal paneling.  If you 
are too late, usually it is possible to use the flux core wire feed to 
fill in drilled holes.   You might practice on the removed panel until 
you get so you can just fill the hole and then take a grinder to grind 
it down so it is flat again.  You might also take a couple of scrapped 
panels and practice "stitching" them using the flux core welder to weld 
up the spots.   If you are not going to use a spot welder, then you 
might want to drill extra holes in the top panel so you can get extra 
attachment with your welds.   Check for weld penetration on your 
practice panels and see how well they are attached.

For the new panel, you might consider using POR-15 like you might do for 
a rusted floor panel repair.   This works well for panels that are 
getting very thin due to rust and welding on them usually just gets them 
warped due to the added heat.   For panels that are not very noticeable, 
POR-15 is a much quicker approach and no panel warping will happen.

I might add that the POR-15 is a GREAT way to repair rusted Late front 
windshield channels.   I used the fiberglass mesh (very similar to 
window screening mesh) and used a little POR-15 to seal the holes in the 
channel bottom, then using more POR-15, built it up and then I was DONE! 
    MUCH faster and easier to repair it than to remove an entire section 
of paneling and welding and still having to worry about the new panel 
channel rusting out once again.

Larry

On 11/28/2011 3:24 PM, Ramon Rodriguez III wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>       First let it be known that I'm a lousy welder using a flux core wire
> feed (220V) unit.  For the very first time I am replacing a panel and I'm
> trying to do it more or less the proper way.  The panel I'm replacing is
> the "nose", including the "grill" area and the front valance on a 65
> coupe.  I removed the old panel and also the better panel from another car
> by drilling the spot welds.... let me tell you that was not as easy.  So
> now I'm installing a panel with all the spot welds drilled out onto a car
> that also had the spot welds drilled out.
>
>       How do I go about filling those holes?  Any tips or tricks?
> Fortunately all the holes will be behind the bumper and under the
> weatherstrip but I'm trying my best to make it a quality repair.
>
>       The panel I'm installing turned out to barely be any better than the
> one I removed (the old panel was all bent up etc, the new one is full of
> holes near the bottom), but having it off the car affords me the
> opportunity to do a better repair job before installing it.
>