rusty roof tear off

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pleasure dart 70

pleasure dart 70

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Question for you mopar fans. I have always wanted a dodge dart so after years i found one i could afford however the roof was vinyl and it rusted bad i mean bad so i bought a 71 parts car with a great roof non vinyl car. Any of you guys swapped them and how bad a job is it? Thanks
 
I haven't swapped mine yet, but I have removed the roof skin from my donor car. Not a horrible job, I spent a couple days on it, on and off, but I was working slowly to make sure I didn't goof it up since I pulled the donor roof skin first. I could probably shorten that down quite a bit now that I know what I'm looking for.

I used a Blair spot weld cutter, I'd suggest getting a couple just in case, I broke one in the drip rail area because of the angle it was at. Not much room in there, you'll probably need to bend the drip rail out a bit to get in there. But once you get the hang of drilling the spot welds it goes pretty quick. There are a crap load of spot welds though.

Do yourself a favor and take the rusty one off first if you can, that way you've got it all figured out when you pull the roof that you're going to be using. I did it backwards, but I needed to get rid of the parts car.
 
I have the same situation to deal with when I get the courage up.

There's a thread on the B bdy side that's pretty good.

I understand there are 200 spot welds!

I also understand you can melt out the lead with a plumber's torch. This true?

Out of curiosity- what would be the disadvantage of culling the roof a couple inches inside the drip rails and just butt welding the new section in (assuming most of your rust issues were not directly in the drip rail area)?
 
make sure and weld in temporary support beams to keep everything lined up bcoz once you start cutting the roof can get weak if you have enough rust and fold the car in half (extreme case) ......but the roof is structural and if it moves around even a 1/4 inch can cause some real problems on the install of the clean metal/roof. i did this on a duster and as said already, you dont always have to use factory seams......i would take out as little metal possible to still get rid of the rust...........also take lots and lots of measurements before cutting anything......especially around the window plugs.
 
thanks guys. It seems to me that the roof on my car has all the support inside and that my top is only a skin does that sound right? Nice rides 72
 
You all have the right idea, but to make the spot weld's on
the door side area's more accessible, it's easier to just remove
the drip rail section's on both side's of the car to gain more access
to them hard to get at spot weld's. And yes........ you can either use
MAP gas or propane torch with an ole wire brush, to remove the
lead in those seam's. Just try not to get the metal to Hot........ just
have some cold water and a rag avaliable to keep thing's cool. Good
luck with your project!
 
First off - I am no body man and have never tackeled a job like this but I have to ask for my own curiosity?? Would it not be easier to just cut off the entire roofs at the front and rear posts and weld the new one on intact?
 
There are multiple layers of material in the window channels. Easier to keep things aligned if you only remove one of those layers vs. getting the whole roof realigned cutting the A and C pillars.
 
cut thru the a and c pillars, you'll be done in hours rather than decades, make you cuts clean and precise and leave a lil for trimming it down to fit
 
waggin said:
cut thru the a and c pillars, you'll be done in hours rather than decades, make you cuts clean and precise and leave a lil for trimming it down to fit
Click to expand...

ive replaced everything but a roof, but it seems to me if you take it off at factory seams it would save a ton of hours
 
crackedback said:
There are multiple layers of material in the window channels. Easier to keep things aligned if you only remove one of those layers vs. getting the whole roof realigned cutting the A and C pillars.
Click to expand...

Have to agree assuming the inner structure is still sound. Just replace the skin. I've cut through a couple B bodies at the bone yards in order to get rear clips to take home to later carefully remove parts for quarter and trunk patches.

The C pillars I've cut through are like the layers of an onion inside with multiple channels for structure and support. I don't know how you would re-weld some of those without removing the outer layers and working your way from the center back out to the outer layers. Guys do it all the time but they have the knowledge and skills. I'm not sure you would save all that much time. You want to do it right and keep the structure sound.

When I lived in Minnesota back in the 80's there was a huge problem with unethical shops that had been attaching clips by just welding the outer surfaces. After a little winter road salt got to them, the cars were literally breaking in half when hitting bumps on the roads. I understand this is a different situation than a roof but if I were driving family and friends around, I'd want all the structure to be properly repaired.

What it comes down to is that you'll have to look at the inner structure condition and your skills and decide if just skinning the roof or replacing the entire assembly would be more time and cost effective.

Just an example of an A pillar
cpillar.jpg
 
YY1 said:
I understand there are 200 spot welds!
Click to expand...

I don't think there was 200 spot welds. Maybe half that? Still a lot, but you can remove the skin in a few hours if you know what you're doing. I took longer than that with the first one, but I bet the next one I do will be twice as fast as the last one.

I can go count if you want, roof skin's out in the shop...:D


YY1 said:
I also understand you can melt out the lead with a plumber's torch. This true?
Click to expand...

Yup. Lead melts at 621.5* F, easily attainable with a propane torch. Not a whole lot of lead in the quarter seams either, its pretty easy.

YY1 said:
Out of curiosity- what would be the disadvantage of culling the roof a couple inches inside the drip rails and just butt welding the new section in (assuming most of your rust issues were not directly in the drip rail area)?
Click to expand...

Disadvantage to cutting and butt welding is that you'll have a lot of cutting to do, the entire length vs just drilling out the spot welds. Then, you'll have to weld that entire distance instead of just replacing the spot welds. More welding= more heat, more heat= more warping.

pleasure dart 70 said:
thanks guys. It seems to me that the roof on my car has all the support inside and that my top is only a skin does that sound right? Nice rides 72
Click to expand...

Yup, that's right. Nice thing about just taking the skin is that the car remains structurally sound, nothing is going to move if you just take the roof skin off.

And thanks!

stumper said:
First off - I am no body man and have never tackeled a job like this but I have to ask for my own curiosity?? Would it not be easier to just cut off the entire roofs at the front and rear posts and weld the new one on intact?
Click to expand...

Not really. The pillars have multiple layers, so you won't be able to reweld the center layers. That means a weaker roof. Plus, you'll have to brace the body, because if you remove the entire structure you make the body much weaker. If it moves, you'll have a heck of a time getting the roof back on straight.

Hot rodder's get away with this because the earlier cars only had single layer pillars, so, you're not losing any strength by chopping the pillars. Once you get past the late 60's, the pillars have multiple layers. Plus, the older cars had full frames, so, they didn't rely on the strength of the roof as much as the unibody style cars.

crackedback said:
There are multiple layers of material in the window channels. Easier to keep things aligned if you only remove one of those layers vs. getting the whole roof realigned cutting the A and C pillars.
Click to expand...

Exactly. No way to weld those inner layers easily once they're cut. And if you don't you've seriously weakened the integrity of the roof.
 
so u don't have to do all that bs roof swapping just the 71 parts car since it has a nice roof on it use your the one that has the bad roof as parts for the 71.
 
Alright, you got me.

I went out and counted all the holes from the spot weld cutter on the roof skin I pulled. Its pretty close to 50 on each side, ~45 across the back, same for the front.

So, I may be a dozen or so spot welds short of 200. But its not like they're even spaced or the same on every car, so 200 is probably a pretty good estimate for most Darts.
 
Thanks 72bluNblu.

I LOVE those 71 GTs.

I think I saw both of them on ebay a few years ago (at least the yellow one).
I almost bid on it a few times. It was the first one I had ever seen.
 
YY1 said:
Thanks 72bluNblu.

I LOVE those 71 GTs.

I think I saw both of them on ebay a few years ago (at least the yellow one).
I almost bid on it a few times. It was the first one I had ever seen.
Click to expand...

Thanks! :D

The butterscotch GT was indeed an eBay find, I was watching it because it was practically in my neighborhood. It was the first GT I had actually seen also. I found Bruce's 70-71 GT site (and FABO, for that matter) doing research on it. I bid in only because it was going so low, and I was shocked I actually won. Other than needing an engine rebuild, it was/is in great shape.

The brown one was never listed on eBay that I'm aware of, it was a local find from a "I buy junk cars" guy. He decided it might be worth more than scrap, so he briefly offered it for sale before he was going to scrap it. Fortunately I was able to pick it up, although, it had basically been parted before he got it. Engine, trans, 8 3/4 rear, buckets, console - all gone. The roof skin I removed is actually for the brown GT. Vinyl top was left on it by the previous owners while the car was outside, so its rusted out. Rest of the car is solid, so once I finish the rebuild on the butterscotch car it'll get a new roof and running gear.
 
thanks guys for all the info the 71 i have is way worse than my 70 only good thing on it is the roof..lol pics of the skin you took off would be graet Thanks again.
 
pleasure dart 70 said:
thanks guys for all the info the 71 i have is way worse than my 70 only good thing on it is the roof..lol pics of the skin you took off would be graet Thanks again.
Click to expand...

I can probably get pictures of the skin tomorrow. This is what the inner structure looks like after you remove the skin...
 

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My 2 cents.

Nice work 72BlunBlu!

The donor car, spend the time to cleanly remove the skin. Spot weld cutter, etc.

Recipient vehicle, use a grinder to take out the spots where accessible. No need to be clean on remove. Just don't go crazy taking out any sub-layers of material. Clean up the first sub layer with a zirc wheel.

Good luck
 
thank you so much for the pics it gives me a real idea where i need to get this thing started
 
I have never cut off a roof, but have cut many other cars for various reasons. I think you may be surprised how well the welds from different cars do lineup!
 
pleasure dart 70 said:
thank you so much for the pics it gives me a real idea where i need to get this thing started
Click to expand...

I'll get some pictures of the roof skin for you too, that will really help illustrate what you need to do. Didn't get to it today, I'll try again tomorrow.
 
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