We all dread being awakened in the middle of the night by a call about a sick family member. If you are into vintage Pontiacs, that same call can come in the middle of the day any time your pride and joy is at the repair or body shop.
I received mine just a few weeks ago. My trusty yet rusty 1967 GTO needed a new windshield, thanks to falling ice. Though I had replaced numerous windshields in a past life, I really dreaded doing this one for fear of the inevitable, so I quietly left it to a professional and hoped that the situation was not as dire as imagined. Then the phone rang. It was Melvin Benzaquen at Classic Restorations, "The glass guy got the old windshield out with no problem but there is no metal left to mount the new one. What do you wanna do?"
What do I want to do? Do I want to sell a GTO that has been part of the family since 1987? Do I want to sell a GTO that has a fairly fresh 455, a 200-4R trans, a rebuilt 3.55 Safe-T-Track rear, rebuilt front and rear suspension, PS, PB, AC, tilt, Rally gauges and vacuum gauge. Oh yeah, and I still have the original engine tucked away too. Hell no, I don't want to sell it!
Then there is the flip side. It needs a complete body restoration including quarters, floors, trunk and doors, and a vinyl roof, as you'll see. This GTO is a poster child for road salt-induced degradation of 20-gauge steel. Let's not even talk about the interior. Regardless, I want to keep it.
Now the worst news--according to Benzaquen it will run me about $900 to have one of his body men cut out the rust and weld in new metal. Here's the rub. I don't have $900, nor do I have a welder to do it myself not to mention the fact that I'm not a welder.
We could just load up the holes with Bondo, throw the glass in and hope for the best but you know as well as I that Bondo soaks up water like a sponge and will compound the problem in the long run.
For a while I had kicked around using a POR-15 Floor Pan and Trunk Restoration Kit to repair the windshield channel. Why shouldn't it work? The channel is metal just like the floor and POR-15 claims to stop rust permanently. What's more, the POR-15 Epoxy Putty is said to be smoothable with your fingers using water and it will not absorb it like Bondo, once cured. And it dries as hard as a rock. So I decided that I had little to lose by trying. When I contacted Jim Wirth (Wirth and Wirth Advertising Services, the company that handles the marketing for POR-15) who has vast experience with the product, he thought it was a great idea. I ordered a kit for $120 and a tube of POR-Patch for $10. This product is simply POR-15 in the thicker form to aid in filling small holes and smoothing rough surfaces.
Armed with the kit, a small grinder, a wire brush on an air drill and lots of optimism I got to work. See the photos for the gory details.
