1800E : Lap Brazed panels vs. Butt Welded panels

[Doug C]

Hey guys I have a '71 volvo 1800E (I know it's not part of this forum's genre but I WILL have a VW T2 bus or truck soon)..Just between me and you, the volvo communities don't seem to have as much body work discussions going on. This site and this sub-forum is awesome though. Anyway I hope ya'll can give me some advice on restoring this car to a "descent looking outlaw daily driver" status. When I got it, it had (and still has) a poor looking replacement rear quarter panel. I have no idea why someone would install a replacement panel that was already damaged but they apparently did. I will be replacing MOST of the vertical portion of this quarter panel.
The top of the deck lid though I want to keep. The problem is.. that the seams of these panels were brazed on, and the panels were over-lapped.. thus the need for the huge amount of filler I guess. Would it be advisable to cut the over-lap out and WELD back together using a butt type weld? I'm in Dallas btw, here are some pics of this project:

Doug C

[Mike Fisher]

Just hammer it out and use some filler to get it perfect. That panel doesn't need to be replaced just repaired. Forget about lap welds whatever you choose to do.
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https://imgur.com/user/FisherSquareback/posts
69 FI/AT square Daily Driver
66 sunroof,67,70,71,71,71AT,72,72AT,73 Parts
two 57 oval ragtops sold
'68 Karmann Ghia sold

Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you end up with a lot of scum on the top! - Russ_Wolfe/Edward Abbey

[Doug C]

I already have a partial replacement for the vertical side quarter coming to me.. It's the top deck horizontal piece that bothers me. The lap brazing was done there, with little effort to get the two panels level. So the original gold part sits a bit higher and the black panel is lower so it's funky (my pictures do not highlight this enough). There's a weird valley at the corner of the trunk lid and I'd like to use as little filler as possible. So I'm thinking of cutting the brazed area out, cutting off the excess under panel then welding, hammer/dolly them fairly level then Butt weld back together. Does this sound like a better idea than just living with the thick bondo and obvious overlapped seams from inside the trunk?

[Mike Fisher]

It doesn't look that rusty so why not just repair what you have. They sell slap & slide hammers etc for hard to reach dents. I wouldn't care what it looks inside the trunk as long as it was painted. Anything up to 1/4" filler is standard operating procedure.
_________________
https://imgur.com/user/FisherSquareback/posts
69 FI/AT square Daily Driver
66 sunroof,67,70,71,71,71AT,72,72AT,73 Parts
two 57 oval ragtops sold
'68 Karmann Ghia sold

Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you end up with a lot of scum on the top! - Russ_Wolfe/Edward Abbey

[Doug C]

I know a good body man could fix that quarter panel but I doubt I'd get it close enough. There is crazy bumps along the top of the wheel arch (kind of a multiple angles area). Also the inner arch liner makes it really hard to access the inside of that panel. Just easier for me to replace MOST of the panel itself (I'm keeping the rear 17" of it intact). The other thing is that this black replacement panel does not have a vent that is supposed to be there because it's from an earlier car. So the partial panel I have coming has that feature. I do have hammers and dollies but need to invest in a good slap hammer.