Drip Rail aka Rain Gutter Delete DIY

[Silentdub]

There have been many people asking about the DIY I wrote some time ago on the removal of the drip rail. I had it on mk1love.com but that is gone, so I am writing it again. There are a few things to remember when removing the drip rail. I removed mine for a combination of reasons. There was rust in several areas that simply required too much grinding to get rid of it all. I would have ended up cutting through the steel, the other reason to do it just to do it I guess. There was no real DIY out there except for a few bugs, and the only car I saw with this done was the Blaupunkt show car. Their car however had a nasty gap between the door and roof, so I knew that I would have to deal with that first

Remember the following:

1. The drip rail is simply the sheet metal from the roof and side body folded together. They basically take the two pieces and fold them 3 times and then add a nice piece of chrome trim on top.
2. If you just cut it off entirely, the sheet metal will come apart and it will be a difficult job to get it back together.
3. Start in the center of the car and not at the edge.


When cutting the rail, I used an angle grinder and a 1/16 inch cutoff wheel. Harbor Freight has them.

Cut small pieces off at a time, and then place a tack weld about every inch.

NOTE: There is no need to run a bead down the entire side as this will only, warp, shrink, and burn the metal up and cause other problems. A tack weld about every inch, is plenty strong.

This is what I had to start with, this is the under side of the drip rail.












When I cut this section out, I cut from the top on and angle towards the car. There is a small indentation under the rail, you want to cut in that direction to save you some time later.

Once it is cut, grind it and clean it up. I also took my time and placed the disk between the two pieces of metal in order to grind away any rust that was between them.











If you notice, there is a little indentation right below where the rail was, now this is the area that you can put your tack welds in and hide them from the outside.



Remember when I said that there was a gap on the Blaupunkt car, well this is what I had to do in order to make the pillar line up with the door, and also to close the gap between the door and roof.

I used a piece of steel stock available at Home Depot or Lowes. I used a 1/8 inch by ¾ inch stock.

I welded this up against the pillar on the edge in order to build up the surface and meet up with the door.








This is the piece of stock I used to close the gap between the door and roof. I also used this piece so that I would have a nice clean smooth edge that I can use as a guide when I fill and sand.








I used that indentation to weld up the stock and roof all in one. It works well because I can weld all day and still be below the outside surface. This is good because you don’t want to have a high spot. A high spot can be tapped down, but you won’t see it until you are sanding or filling and then it is a pain in the ass because tapping it will fuck up the filler that you already have down. Weld in the little area.



Make a tack weld about every inch.






When it comes time for filler, you want to use fiberglass first. Fiber glass will seal out moisture as standard body filler will not. The first coat should be with glass.

I used:


and finished with:




The first one is a high quality milled glass fiber resin.

The second one is the filler, probably the best on the market. It is VERY easy to sand and finishes pin hole free and perfectly smooth.

http://www.autobodystore.com has the best price on both.

Good luck!