Getting ready to start cutting out rust and making patches! Those of you that have done this yourselves, what are the metal thicknesses on the longs? Are the inners and outers the same thickness? Also, are the "doubled areas" the same? Wish me luck bringing this one back!

Blair

Those are all great questions, and the very same ones I have.

I believe the gauge of the steel is the same for the inner as the outer.

Not sure what you mean by the "doubled" areas though

19

You cannot buy that, so 18 or 20
Thicker for the longs.

Rich

I have a donor car the the longs are bad on, but there are other places on the car where the sheet metal is in good shape. Is the whole car 19 gauge ?

Thanks

Most of it is 19.
It's a metric thing guys.

We can buy 18 or 20 here.

For longs, yes there are double walled sections, do your homework and look at the terra byte of pictures in the restoration forum..there are some very good directions in there.

Rich

The "doubled areas" are the areas from about the seatbelt nut up past the suspension console. Thes areas are actually two pieces of formed steel that are sandwitched together for the inner long as well as the outer long/wheelhouse area.

Generally speaking; 18 & 20ga, 18ga if it is structural.

I'll speak from experience, other than smallish sections, it is best to just buy the pieces from RD if you're replacing more than 30% of any of these pieces.

The reason I asked the question in the first place was I had read thru a lot of the rustorations on here. And was trying to get an idea for what I would need to look at. I've seen widely varying thicknesses used on a lot of these longitudinal repairs. People have used anywhere from 18ga. (.048") up to 11ga.(.121")! I certainly hope there aren't any restorations riding around on large patches in the structural areas made from 18 ga. or worse yet 20 ga! The reason I say this is I was able to dig into the car some today and put a micrometer on the outer clamshell area of the longitudinal and it measures .0745". on clean bare metal. Thats 14ga. almost twice as thick as 18 ga! I haven't been able to dig into the thickness of the inside "doubled" areas as of yet. But will report back when I get there. And I agree RD makes excellent parts for replacing a lot of these pieces, I'm sure I'll be using some myself. especially when I get to the floorpans!

Blair

I would be interested to see where you found 11 gauge because I think that is either doubled up, like the seat belt area, or a previous owners handiwork.

These cars are made from sheet metal...several layers, but mainly not, just single layers.

Rich

Rich, I measured the outer clamshell bottom at the drain hole(s) (it is a single layer here) as well as the inner forward area of the inner long (inside the cabin- well away from the seat belt mounting hole) near where the heater tube exits up towards the dash area. Both of these areas on my car are definately original and not patched or molested in any way. These areas both measure .0745 +/- .003". Thats 14ga.(1.9mm) sheet metal. I'm fairly sure this was probably 2.0mm metal before I cleaned and sanded it to get to bare metal for measurements.

My comment about 11ga was in reference to some of the restoration threads I've seen here. All of witch are great by the way! Have learned a lot!

Blair