# t-jet body repairs??



## Marko (Jul 11, 2002)

I am looking for someone that can repair a hairline crack in roof, missing window post and small indention on the roof of an Aurora Buick Riviera. Or maybe point me in the right direction. I checked with Mike V and he no longer does this. Also, I do not want to attempt this myself. Any help is greatly appreciated. The color is a slate blue/grey, which is not too common. The bumpers, posts, silver accents are all in great shape and I hate to trash it.


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## Dragula (Jun 27, 2003)

If you can get Bill Hall on here to do it,he is second to none.
Christian


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## bobwoodly (Aug 25, 2008)

*Here is the problem*

I can't speak for Bill, but...

Bill is the best. I'd guess the average rate of an auto body man to be $50 an hour and I think Bill's skills are considerably more rare. A repair like that would take a few hours at a minimum so the economics just don't make sense unless you are talking a several hundred or thousand dollar plus car even if you could find someone with Bill's skills.

I have Earl Schiebe level skills and can do repairs but the effort and time is so high I would only do it on my own stuff. Also slate blue donor cars are very tough to find. I have a slate blue Jag and yet to have come across a slate blue body of any type to repair the missing window posts in 3 years of looking.

If you find someone let me know as I would be interested in using them as well but it may be tough.


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## Marko (Jul 11, 2002)

Thank you for the information, fellas. It looks like I will have a tough time fixing this.


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## Dragula (Jun 27, 2003)

bobwoodly said:


> I can't speak for Bill, but...
> 
> Bill is the best. I'd guess the average rate of an auto body man to be $50 an hour and I think Bill's skills are considerably more rare. A repair like that would take a few hours at a minimum so the economics just don't make sense unless you are talking a several hundred or thousand dollar plus car even if you could find someone with Bill's skills.
> 
> ...


Bob,I have a painted jag that has been cut in half just forward of the firewall,it is slate,yours if you want it.
Christian


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## 1scalevolvo (Feb 5, 2004)

bobwoodly said:


> I can't speak for Bill, but...
> 
> Bill is the best. I'd guess the average rate of an auto body man to be $50 an hour and I think Bill's skills are considerably more rare. A repair like that would take a few hours at a minimum so the economics just don't make sense unless you are talking a several hundred or thousand dollar plus car even if you could find someone with Bill's skills.
> 
> ...


You can start a thread & call you "Shop " Earl Schiebe Custom HO !!


Neal:dude:


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## bobwoodly (Aug 25, 2008)

Neal,

After seeing Bill's work mine might make you queasy...


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## Dragula (Jun 27, 2003)

*Apocalypse jag*

The horror...the horror..


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## old blue (May 4, 2007)

I am seeing the makings of a stretch limo Jag there!


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## Dragula (Jun 27, 2003)

When I first saw it cut,then that it was slate,i revisited my sausage biscuit. Chunder struck


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Wow, Chris and Tom (aka Bob) that's some very high praise, I'm really not worthy.

Marko: At this time I'm not taking in repairs, sorry. Of late I havent been in the slot cave at all. Maybe later this year. My enthusiasm comes and goes.

Tom is spot on regarding the amount of time it takes to produce the repairs; let alone the prohibitve cost of slate material to work with. That particular repair on a Riv is trickier than it looks. The glass will have to be removed. That's a headache in itself because the roof is notoriously thin, ESPECIALLY if it's a Harry High School reglue or a heavy original factory schlobber. While I have a specialized method for tricky glass removal, it's not guaranteed. Even then you may have to kill the glass to save what's left of the roof. For that matter, the cracked roof and boinked pillar could be the result of a glass removal gone horribly awry and who ever just backed off. There will be a tell under the roof edge and a warble where the screwdriver or blade was crammed in. Perhaps even a stress mark or discoloration. 

Then the roof may have to be de-stressed if it's bent. This usually results from a boot stomp or a drawer slam. The pillar has to be repaired. The roof crack has to be re-bonded, the glass index dimple has to be filled, then all of it must be cut back, color blended, and polished. Are the vent posts broken, noodled, or missing? Anybody wound a screw into the posts lately? First guy that does without relieving them or destressing the shrinkage from aging is just asking for broken or cracked posts.

As you can see I've been tricked and juked beyond sanity by these 40 yr old plastic explosives. Over the last few years of dinking with this stuff the lesson learned is that one can fix darn near any fubarred t-jet; the moral of the story is that it's not even close to being cost effective when you divide the dollars by time, deduct costs and factor in the whoopsies and surprises.




What a cool Jagula project!

Truth serum first. You'd have to strip it perfectly clean and mount the seperate halves to a square chassis and determine whether or not; and if so, how much gaposis lurks in the no-man's land between the two parts. Soooooo the question of whether it was razor cut or ditchwitched will be answered. It would appear that they did have the forethought to cut it along the factory seam...so that works in your favor 

This excercise will tell you if you can butt the two halves together and bond them as is, OR if you have to make up for lost material. .5 mm can be spanned reliably. Once you start creeping up to and over 1 mm you'll need to "fir it up" with some donor material. Knowing this beforehand will tell you how to proceed on the actual first step below.

Ideally you'd correct the mutilated hood bump first and then square front clip's rear edge where it was cut. Same for the leading edge of the back half, square it up and make sure you have a perfect prefit.

It's really too bad about the incursion up into the hood bump...that put's the degree of difficulty off the charts due to the fact that the hood vents are right where you'll be feathering the repair. Pre-shaping a hood bump and sucessfully grafting it on is straightforward. What isnt guaranteed is that you wont club off the vent detail as your trying to perfect the "bump to hood" transition.

Other than getting the main body graft together it just needs a "reverse AJ" on the rear wells and the rear post corrected.


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## Joe65SkylarkGS (Feb 15, 2010)

I say call the funeral home and start proceedings.

Mr Hall, you simply amaze me with these 40 year old plastic explosives!!!!


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## Marko (Jul 11, 2002)

Bill, Thanks for the detailed and informing response, I do appreciate it. I could send you the car, when you are ready, for an estimate. I am in no big hurry. I hope you can help me out on this and realize it will be time consuming and expensive. So, keep in touch via the boards or email me at [email protected]. Thanks for any considerations!!


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