Fixing Broken or Missing A Pillars

[LennyB]

Anyone have any tricks for repairing A pillars. Have this old T-Bird I want to bring back to life. Have some ideas of my own but wondering if anyone has a good "solid' way of repairing this.

[bh1701]

Len,

I recently repaired a 67 T-Bird with a broken A-Pillar. I did what I think most people do - which is to use various sizes and thicknesses of plastic strips to rebuild the pillar and roofline. I used a wider strip for the back of the pillars, and then used thin narrow strips to build out the exposed portion of them. Some body putty and some very gentle sanding were also used to fill in any small gaps that still existed

Hopefully these photos will give you some idea of how I did it.

I think it was a pretty "solid" repair. The window glass behind the pillars also helps to provide support.

Good luck with your T-Bird. It has more damage than I started with, but you should be able to rescue it!

Bart

 

 

Almost there - still had a little bit of sanding and body putty to be done.

 

The finished restoration

Edited January 9 by bh1701
Added info

[Steamboat]

Same idea, but I carved the detail into a single piece of styrene and then curved it around the vertical axis.  I also reinforced it with a strip on the inside which I filed to fit after the glue had dried.  Others have suggested reinforcing with wire which seems like a great idea. 

[bobss396]

I have to take pictures of my '56 Ford I'm working on. The A and B pillars were broken, nothing missing. I reinforced them with thin aluminum strips and CA glue. 

In the past I have scribed channels in the post and roof. Then embedded wire with CA glue. 

[LennyB]

Thanks guys, this is kinda what I've been thinking. Thought about reinforcing it with a wire embedded from behind like you mentioned also.

Edited January 9 by LennyB

[Ace-Garageguy]

Yup, I've done repairs similar to the ones above, styrene carefully fitted and installed with liquid cement, allowed to dry several days, but I use very fine fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin (not the 5-minute stuff, but real structural epoxy) for final reinforcement on the backside.

No progress shots, but this one had zero pillars when I got it, after somebody tried to chop the top, realized they were in over their head, and gave up.

The slender pillars withstood rather a lot of handling to get it to this point.

 

Edited January 10 by Ace-Garageguy

[LennyB]

2 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Yup, I've done repairs similar to the ones above, styrene carefully fitted and installed with liquid cement, allowed to dry several days, but I use very fine fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin (not the 5-minute stutt, but real structural epoxy) for final reinforcement on the backside.

No progress shots, but this one had zero pillars when I got it, after somebody tried to chop the top, realized they were in over their head, and gave up.

The slender pillars withstood rather a lot of handling to get it to this point.

 

Thanks Bill, the fiberglass and epoxy resin sounds like a good plan. And I have some on hand.

[Rodent]

Lenny, is this a '67 or '68? I recently acquired some '68 parts to complete the restoration of one I built in the early 1970s. There is a surprising amount of parts for these kits on eBay if you save a search or three and have patience. I would probably look for a better body before fixing that one unless it has sentimental value to you.

[LennyB]

18 minutes ago, Rodent said:

Lenny, is this a '67 or '68? I recently acquired some '68 parts to complete the restoration of one I built in the early 1970s. There is a surprising amount of parts for these kits on eBay if you save a search or three and have patience. I would probably look for a better body before fixing that one unless it has sentimental value to you.

Steve this is a '67 which are not as common as the '68. I know I can find better but I don't mind a challenge.

[Ulf]

I have repaired a broken A-pillar in the upper corner once, if it wasn't a Jo-han Oldsmobile kit I wouldn't have done it, phew what a lot of work !
I sawed a 1/16 groove into the roof actually and glued a piece of flat styrene that was quite hard(plasticard was too soft).
When the glue dried I filed to the shape including the edge of the windshield because the roof post was a little thicker.
I took a picture just now to show the angle of how I sawed (blue tape), the styrene piece was very well machined at the end that was glued to the post while the other end stuck up so I could hold it with a piang, the paper piece has about the same shape. I then glued with Tenax (much like Tamiya's glue) and filled (sculpted) with Milliput. Was it good or perfect ?
It was ok but a vinylroof Mary have hidden some…

Give the glue long time to set.

Edit:
It's not a bit ironic that I was going to write that the bonding is the weakest point much like a broken bone but I didn’t.
A couple of hours later I slipped and broke my ankle in two places and now surgery and months of convalescence await. A light in the darkness was all the help I got from people when it happened and the nurses who picked me up in the ambulance. Now I guess I'll plant and fantasize about what to build. The operation next week is to screw stainless steel plate over one of the breaks and screw or two screws to steady it up, in short a bit like my plastic piece across when I mended my Jo-han kit once.

Edited January 11 by Ulf
Broken ankle

[von Zipper]

 

[LennyB]

4 hours ago, von Zipper said:

 

I just did something like that with a Johan 60 Desoto that was missing a section at the base of the windshield. I can post pics later when I'm home.

Thought of doing the same with the T-Bird and then using Bills idea for the fiberglass repair to seal it in place.

[bobss396]

20 hours ago, LennyB said:

Thanks Bill, the fiberglass and epoxy resin sounds like a good plan. And I have some on hand.

Even better.. get some fingernail wrap silks. Beauty supply and drug stores should have them. One side is sticky. You need sharp scissors to cut them, a knife just pulls the material.

I use the embedded wire method. Single strand works best, brass wire .015" is good.

I groove the busted pillar, embed the wire with CA glue and give it time to set up. Leave the ends really long. Prep the body, groove a channel on both ends and cut your "fiberglass" pieces. 

I like to tack the pillar in with a dab of CA glue, give that time to set. Place the little patches you have cut. Then soak them with CA glue. Any I have repaired have held up.

[bobss396]

This is the nail silk material I have. 

The pillars on my Ford stock car, I just used aluminum stock and CA glue since it does not have to look pretty.

[LennyB]

I want to thank everyone for their input. Essentially I followed the thread by  59 Impala with some slight deviation. I used the Amazing Mold Putty but instead of fingernail resin I used Alumilite Tan Casting Resin.

Molds on the body

 

You can see here how much is missing from the pillar on the right.

Removed from the mold.

After cleanup, will just need a little more work.

 

Thanks again all.

 

The ironic thing is I was up in the attic earlier(after this work was done) and found another 67 T-Bird with perfect A pillars.😫

Edited January 12 by LennyB