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Volvo 120: Rear Panel Replacement

After a deal of consideration (and a certain degree of apprehension) I have now replaced the rear panel on my Volvo amazon saloon. It turned out to be a little fiddly but not as difficult as I feared. This is how I went about it.
Volvo 120 Rear panel


My biggest concern was how taking the rear panel out would compromise the strength of the rear wings, leaving them vulnerable to being twisted or distorted. This was especially true of the n/s wing which has at present no point of attachment to the car along its lower edge.

The rear panel is attached to the floor by a row of spot welds along the bottom lip. I drilled these out
as best I could, although the original panel was quite badly corroded here and the spot welds were difficult to identify and drill accurately. Here and there the lip simply crumbled away.

There are two points around each light cluster aperture at which the panel is butt welded...

Amazon rear panel repair


...and the boot seal channel is lap welded in line with the horizontal seam. This needs to be ground out with some degree of finesse.

Volvo repair boot seal



The spot welded flanges inside the boot are difficult (if not impossible) to get a drill onto, especially the vertical seams. I marked up cut lines, then removed a section from each of the lower corners, using an angle grinder. This gave me access to the vertical spot welds which I then drilled out. I deliberately left the panel attached by the horizontal seam at this point to give the wing some rigidity while drilling.

Volvo amazon rear panel removal


Once I had removed the welds, I cut along my horizontal markings to remove the remainder of the rear panel, then drilled out the spot welds from below.

Rear panel removed Volvo 120


I then cleaned up the edges/faces with a flap wheel disc on the angle grinder (120 grit). 

The lap weld across the boot seal channel is more challenging as it is concave and needs to be ground back to recover the stepped 'joggled' edge. I used a Dremmell for this job, with a couple of different shaped grinding stones and this worked well.

Dremmell grinding weld


At this point I ran out of time and I had to stop for the day. I have to confess that my poor old amazon was looking in a pretty sorry state with so much bodywork missing and the remnants of the boot floor propped up with a block of wood. I can only hope that the car has hit its lowest point; from here on there will be more building and replacement, not just dismantling. 


rear panel removed volvo


The next morning I set about fitting up the new panel. 

Welding rear panel volvo


It took several attempts to clamp up accurately. The wings were under tension and once released from the welds they had sprung outward. Persuading them to meet up and align with the new panel was somewhat frustrating. 

Volvo rear panel repair


Following the test fit, I unclamped everything again, then prepared the surfaces for welding. I drilled 7mm holes along the flanges on the new panel, for plug welding, and dusted both surfaces with weld through primer from a rattle can.

weld through primer plug welding


After another protracted and meticulous fit-up, I was finally able to weld the panel into place.

Volvo rear panel replacenment

So that's what I did. Remember, I am not claiming to be an expert or that my method is the best; you well may have other/better ideas. If so please leave a comment, I would be very interested in your opinion.

Next I'm going to have to tackle the boot floor itself and I expect this to be one of the most challenging fabrications of the build. I have some ideas, but I am not confident that they will all work. Only one way to find out.





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