Laguna Blue 75 build thread, making patch panels Options

[Tim17]

The previous owner told us the hell hole and longs had been done and he seemed like an honest car guy. So that was dumb and naive of me. It was clear that a bunch of work had been done around the hell hole, which looked good from the engine bay. When we got it home and on the lift we were faced with a rusted out lower firewall.
Ordered a firewall repair panel.
We pulled the engine today and cut out the lower firewall and it’s pretty ugly.

[Tim17]

We had the car supported at each wheel with jack stands and two support turnbuckles in the RH door frame but that didn't look good enough to start hacking away any more rotten structure on the right side. Added a jack stand under the rear suspension console. Went thru the scrap steel bin and found a section of steel beam, some square tubing from my old Factory Five Cobra rear suspension and a few other bits, to tie the rear transmission mount to the lift bed.
Now we have 3 points of support on the back end or the RH side, which is pretty secure.



Up front, I moved my bridge jack under the aft lip of the front wheel well and shimmed some blocks into place, making a total of 5 points on support on the RH side. and 3 on the left.




With the chassis stabilized, it was on with the rust surgery. Cut into the front end of outer rocker and lower A post sheet metal. There were more botched repairs up there.



Received the new inner rocker cover from AA. Planning to use the whole thing except up front where it makes more sense to only replace the rotten bottom section. We have a pretty good idea now what we need to fab up for the inner long welded patch to mate with the inner rocker.

I keep on muttering "Fxcking Bob" as I get deeper into this work of art he sold us. But it's our work of art now and the only way out is to save it.

Tim