This week I finished the upper windshield channel by cutting out the old one and replacing it with new metal. This was a real bear because there was once spot about 6 inches long where the welder kept blowing holes in the old roof metal so I had to keep filling them in. Very tedious and time consuming. I don't know why it did that other than maybe the metal had more rust than I thought on the inside and was too thin. Seem pretty solid though so I don't know. I scraped the inside of the roof and channel the best I could from the inside to get as must rust out as I could. There wasn't as much as I thought to I was real happy and didn't have to replace the roof brace. I found that to replace the roof brace you actually have to cut the roof off and I'm not ready to do that. After the scraping a sprayed a ton of rust encapsulator into all the cracks and crevices and that should stop any of the remaining rust from spreading or getting worse.
Passenger side is done.
Drivers side is done. The red you see is not rust but red primer paint.
I covered all the welds with metal filler to make sure any remaining pinholes were covered. This will be primed with epoxy primer like the cowl was when I get all the paint off the top of the roof. This little channel is too small to get the paint gun dirty for.
From here have removed the center roof braces under the roof as they are both damaged. I may or may not have to remove the rear roof brace. This may be once of those parts that needs the roof ripped of to get at the welds and if it is I will be looking for alternatives. Its $500 for a new roof so thats a last resort. I am hoping once I get the upper rear window channel cut out to expose the brace flange that it will not be as bad as it looks right now and can just be ground down to clean metal. If not I will see what I can do to get it out on just cut the rusted part out and weld the similar cut out part from the new brace onto the old brace.
You can see in the below picture what the roof looked like when I started. I have been wire wheeling on this for a while and and getting the worst rust off it. I will continue the work on this and get the vast majority off then apply rust encapulation to kill the rest of it. I am usuing POR 15 rust encapsulator where I can get access with a brush and Eastwood spray encapsulator where I cannot. The spray system has a 2 foot hose the can be pushed down into cracks to get thorough coverage.
The rear brace in question at the left end of the roof.
The two center braces have been removed. They formed a cross in the center of the roof. I have a new one for the horizontal but there a no parts available for the vertical brace so I will be cleaning it up, straightening it and reinstalling it.
I only have half the floor cut out and need to take some more out so I can stand and finish the work on the back of the roof. Once that is done I will go back and replace the floor.
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