So I warped some panels on my project car...

[conor1n]

Hey guys,

Your resident leech here, looking for some [more] assistance on a project.. one day i'll be able to help somebody out, but we ain't there yet

Anyhow..

I was test fitting the side skirts on my Clio track car build and noticed that there is some warping on the panels. In three spots. Ouch.

I am wondering two things:
* How did this happen? Is it a case that I just bent the panels during fabrication (before welding) as I can try and show in one photo? (In which case the dents can be pulled)
* Did I simply just warp the panels when welding, which is more likely. (In which case, how can I fix... hoping I don't need oxy/acet to shrink....)

What do you guys think? How bad would thinks go if I attached some fixture (somehow) and used a slide hammer to pull... or a dolly/hammer/spoon? Worse case scenario I leave it as is, as it's just a track car .. but i'd like to use this as a learning experience.

So here are a few shots (admittedly not the best....) to show what's going on. I show them mostly with the skirt on as you can't really notice it without.

These first two photos are warps on the same side.

For some reason, I feel like the ore acute dent, closest the door jam is just a dent as I didn't weld near there (I think).

Then this is the other side..

Here are some shots of when I was doing the welding.. so you can get a feel for stuff. Admittedly, I probably need to go back tomorrow, wipe off all the crap off surface and take some clean shots without the skirt on. Here we are for now.

 

[tigdlo]

hoping I don't need oxy/acet to shrink

Looks like weld weld has already done the shrinking and pulled the panel down. can you get a dolly to the back of the weld? If so try to planish the weld first, don't be too gentle as the weld probably wants stretching and that is hard work with mig, check your progress often and all around the repair to make sure nothing else is moving and stop when it is close enough you can live with it, too far would create a bigger headache.

Your plug welds look too small, there is possibly little strength in them, some look like balled up weld metal on the outer panel with no penetration.

 

[tigdlo]

The entire video is worth a watch but this is the section relevant to the plug welds.

 

[Burdekin]

As above, when the weld cools it shrinks the metal around weld. Ideally you then stretch the weld by planishing it to remove the distortion. Obviously not possible in this instance so get your big sanding block out and give it a rub over the area looking for the low and high spots. Remove the big low spots by pushing them out first to see where you're at. Then on dolly to stretch the smaller low spots out and off dolly pushing the metal towards the centre to shrink high spots. Just go slow as you don't want tin canning.

A shrinking disc would be a useful tool in this scenario.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Worth taking some measurements of the shell (diagonals) to check nothing has moved?