Originally Posted by James1549
Mike, In 1979, a group of us got to tour the Camaro/Firebird assembly plant here in Cincinnati. One of the most interesting things I recall is seeing the workers melting in the lead where the roof met the quarters. The "iron" reminded me of the old irons that people use for door stops today. I saw one guy iron the lead so smooth, I doubt it needed anymore work for the finished product. I know that on some cars, they used bondo to fill in any imperfections after it was leaded. The lead was for strength, the bondo for a smooth finish.
James
Now that you mention it, I guess I proably did see areas that were leaded, and I just didn't realize that's what I was looking at. I started working at the Buick dealer when I was 16.
The one thing that did stand out in my memory was all the "Bondo" the factory used. Back then if your car had bondo in it people would turn their nose up at it. Most people didn't know (or wouldn't believe) the factories used it too.
I remember one of the best body men they had once told me there was nothing wrong with bondo as long as you're not trying to fill up a rust hole with it.
One of the worst batch of cars that came from the factory with a poor quality C-Pillar blend was the Road Runner and Super Bee's. Their vinyle roofs used to cover a multitude of sins. Some were so bad you could even see the 1/4 panel and roof seam show thru the vinyle covering.