I'm doing a full restoration on my 1988 FC and like many others I'm sure, my pinchwelds are smashed in and would ideally like to have them back. I'm not sure how to go about it, can I just pull them back out? Or do I cut and weld new pinchwelds in? Any advice is greatly appreciated

 

its kind of a pain, but you want to pull them back out.
i use a screw driver to get it bent out enough i can use pliers or something.
also you might want like a yardstick just so you have something to see how straight it is

 

I am in the middle of doing this as well, I use duckbilled vice grips to bend them back into place, I am going to be grinding and building them back up with weld, as they are the only rust bit as the paint as scraped off when previous owner tried to jack the car up. I try to only lift by the engine cross member or rear diff, so front or rear only, not use the sides

 

I just bought a pair of those duckbill vice grips to straighten my pinch welds. Haven't gotten to it yet, but I think they should work just fine. Let us know how your job turns out.

 

depends on how badly smashed they are. if they are crushed, you might need to pull them back down with a hydraulic ram. if they aren't bad then you can hammer and dolly them straight.

 

thanks I'll pick some of these up to give it an attempt, hope it all goes well

 

iffy, some spots are pretty bad but its unevenly smashed, so hard to tell how bad it is overall

 

i used a yardstick to get an idea of what straight would be, its hard to tell when you're upside down.
i took the rubber plugs out, and then used some hook type tool to pull it straight. think of it like paintless dent repair.

this is the best pic ive got, i did what i could buts its not perfect

 

Once upon a time I took a length of 1.5" x 1/8" steel angle and cut it into an L shape that "capped" the stock pinch weld. I swiss cheesed it and used the holes to weld it to the existing pinch before grinding it flat.

It was a lot of work but turned out great! You could pick the car up anywhere on the new strip. I owned the car for a number of years afterwards and it always looked perfect.

-Alex

 

interesting, if I cant fix it with the duckbill vise grips I'll definetly try this

 

thank you and you are very right, being upside down definetly alters your perspective