Installed the floor pans today. Still have to do the one under the rear seat, which shouldn’t take much time. The new patch panels fit well and look pretty close to the originals on the other side of the car, but the embossing is not as crisp. Why is it that they can’t make them identical? Not that it matters on a floor pan so much, but even so.

I still have to finish welding them in, but they are tacked in pretty good. I chose not to butt-weld them because that would be far too much work for floor pan on this car, and cutting and fitting them close enough for that would be a huge challenge to my limited skills at this point. Heck, I am just learning to weld!

The rear pan took a fair amount of work. I had to cut out the lower portion of the rear door brace to get full access to the area. This brace is only used on the Sport Sedan models since there is no window post to help support it. Behind that brace, the vertical area of the floor pan was rusted through. Removing the brace allowed me to properly patch that area and fit the new panel in easily. The brace itself has a fair amount of rust damage on it, which I will patch with some heavy-gauge steel soon. Just ahead of the brace is a complex shaped piece that is not available in reproduction. Luckily I was able to salvage this piece from the parts car. It was barely savable… pretty thin metal, and difficult to weld in place without blowing holes in it. There are still some other small patches that need installed. The corner of the reproduction panel has a rather large gap that I will have to make a small piece to patch. There is also a small triangular area just above the new panel that had rusted through and was cut-out. Of course, all areas were treated with Picklex-20 rust converter before being capped over with the new metal.

Fixed the passenger side rocker panel today. While trying to decide the best way to tackle this job, I decided to call my neighbor Gary over for some advice since he has some experience with this sort of thing. He advised that I not even replace the panel, but repair the original instead. The reproduction panel has pretty vague bends to it, so instead of the sharp 90 degree bend of the original, its more like the radius of a pencil… kinda ugly!

BEFORE

The original panel had several holes in it up high, but no rust damage at all down low. After vacuuming and blowing all the dirt and debris out of the rocker, it appeared to be pretty nice inside. Gary suggested that I just ream the holes out good with a screwdriver until I get to some solid metal around it then mig weld them closed.  I poked around real good all over the panel to find all the weak spots then welded them up. Toward the front of the panel there were too many holes in a row, so I cut out a rectangular section and welded in a new piece. I also made sure to spray Picklex-20 rust converter all over inside everywhere I could… through the access holes in the top, through the rust holes before I welded them shut, etc and then sprayed in some Zero-Rust to seal it up. This should help prevent further rusting.  Before I call it done though, I will give the panel a good cleaning with the portable sand blaster to reveal any soft spots I may have missed. Before any primer goes on I will skim coat the whole panel with some fiberglass reinforced filler… Duraglass or something similar. This type of filler is moisture resistant and is good insurance against moisture possibly getting through any pinholes in the welds and bubbling the paint job after its done. After inspecting the drivers side rocker panel I think it can receive the same treatment rather than being completely replaced.

AFTER

Steve came out yesterday, so we took the frame off. First Steve cut off the remaining 2 body bolts that were spinning free inside the body brace where ya can’t get at the nut with a wrench. Then we removed the rear axle so the frame could be dragged out from under the body more easily. Came out easy, no problems! Then we simply let the frame down slowly with the body supported by jack stands, and there ya have it.

We can’t use the rotisserie yet, because the rear body brace needs repaired first. In the mean time, the body rests on 2×4′s across the rockers. This should help to distribute the weight more evenly. Just for peace of mind, I welded in some square tubing between the doors to make sure the back end won’t sag.