I was installing some Dynamat-like mats on the inside roof sheetmetal today and noticed the shabby welds the factory made on these cars.
I plan to add some extra welds to tie everything together a bit more.

Also 'interesting' to see was how weak the design of the roof span is. Almost like it's ment to be able to flex with the car's body structure.
Thinking of adding some extra welds here and maybe add some gussets.


Roof span connection/bracket;




Factory welder guy having a bad day?




Few welds, and right at the corner where the A-pillar goes down, the metal is fatigue cracked. Same on the other side. (Notice the thin vertical rustline).




I'm thinking these manually made welds where made firstly to just hold/mockup together the individual frame pieces, after which the spotwelder welded everything together.

I'm more curious about the sound-deadening material you used.

What is the raised dot pattern for?

secret messages in brail.

Those cars were lucky to get down the line at all with the QC going on back then.

The raised dots were ment for the blind guy doing the welding at the time of course... duh

The sound deadening sheets are simple rubber/bitumen sheets with a self-adhesive coating on one side.
When you warm them up they get very soft and moldable. The glue gets real tacky makes mounting easy.

So what happens to the glue when the roof gets hot in the Summer? Perhaps that's not a problem in the Netherlands.

My roof crossbeam wasn't even welded on one side and my a-pillar welds were just as ugly as yours - just the way they were built back then

I would recommend punching some holes in the outer layers with a Rotabroach holesaw to make some additional attachment points. Looks like you have plenty of room on those flanges to add in a bunch of plug welds to tighten things up.

Yes, yet get a look at some roll-overs in the wrecking yards and everything stays in one piece. Jaws invented to get people out.

Nice, clean metal you have there. If it was on a rotisserie I would flip it over and put half a roll of 023 into it and button it all up.

Tight as a drum then, need less matting.

I'll see what happens with the glue when the temps go up in the next months. Was worried about that too.


Today, I've added plenty of ugly welds of my own to the area. But I'm pretty sure nothing, if any is flexing anymore here.

My camera "wouldn't focus" on my ugly welds so no pics..


I've added a simple 2" x 1.75" gusset on both sides of the roofspan.
Below's a sketch of the gusset placement.
Could do more gusseting, but that wouldn't benefit much more because the span itself isn't that sturdy.

It already is gusseted. Just follow and weld up the joints that are already there.

The roofspan itself has flimsy tabs on the sides, so even if the bracket could be made 'bulletproof', it won't do much for strength on the span itself.

I don't feel further welding would improve much. Besides that, the car is a running daily used driver with full interior and vinyl roof.
Welding the span and roofframe to the roofskin didn't seem like a smart idea

Most of the structure comes from the roof skin, that is why the welds are not that critical on the frame work...tim