what a great read and you really do remember the picture taking part, I always forget to take them along the way.

Super job and keep us posted...

Thanks for sharing!

It's all so funny/interesting. I've not worked with wood but I've always had beliefs like "heck, how hard can wood working be? You can do it with wimpy little tools that don't cost very much (e.g. wood lathe vs metal lathe), etc, etc."

Shows how little I know. I appreciate gaining a new perspective!

When people compliment my work, inside, I'm thinking, "man, if I can figure it out, anyone can." Not that I don't appreciate the kind words. I do.

Lesson learned for me about all things in life is: Come on people! Jump in and give it a go. With a bit of practice, I bet you'll be surprised at how well you do.

OK, back to work...

There's some truth to that. But now we are getting outside of metal shaping and into machining. I think in many ways, machining and woodworking are more similar except one is with harder material that requires more expensive toys. And the need for precision down to 1/1000s with machining metal. Still, a good table saw will run in the $2K-$4K range, so it isn't chump change. And there don't seem to be many less expensive, weekend warrior, grade tools for setting up a home machine shop. Sheet metal shaping seems more comparable to woodworking in terms of tool requirements. You can accomplish a lot with simple hand tools, and there is a variety of price points for tools to fit budgets and skill. A few months ago, I thought to do quality work would require an expensive sheer, box brake, and all of that. Not that those wouldn't be nice...

Got the bottom inner long trimmed and tacked in last night. Took an hour and a half to put that many tacks in. I'm relieved to be putting structure back in rather than taking it out.

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Congrats on a major milestone!

It really made a difference for me mentally to know I'd made that U-turn. It's very satisfying to see it made whole again.

As others have said: Good on you for saving another of our little cars!

Well, I lost two weekends of work on the car to travel. First was a trip to Boulder, CO to attend our nephew's wedding. The following weekend, I drove out to Seattle over Labor Day weekend to see friends. I logged over 3,000 driving miles in just over a week. I did manage to finish welding and grinding the inner long in between trips, but only took this crappy pic before moving on.

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The day after my return, this arrived :

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Back at it

I didn't have a lot of time during the week, but managed to finish forming the front wheel well patch.

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And trimming the outer long panel.

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Just seeing that panel clamped on was a big psychological boost.

The rest of the operation is going to require a carefully choreographed dance. First, I'm being careful not to remove too much metal at once. So, I'm trying to cut out a bit and get it structurally sound before moving on to the next piece. As added insurance, I added support for the chassis under the firewall to keep things aligned when I eventually have to remove that outer suspension console. Second, I'm going to paint all the internals with a rattle can of Eastwood's epoxy primer. Once activated, it only has a 48 hour open time so I need to have my ducks in a row to be able to paint and install all the parts within that window.

Here are the planned dance steps:

1. Repair rear section of inner long.
2. Repair front section (heater tube and seat belt mount area) of corrugated inner wall in long using weld-thru primer.
3. Weld in new seat belt mount
4. Fab new heater tube brackets.
5. Media blast heater tubes and hose clamps to prep for primer.
6. Remove inner wheel well and repair rear section of inner layer of inner long.
7. Treat all internals with phosphoric acid metal prep (Jasco).
8. Primer inside of inner long, outer long, and inner wheel house.
9. Install heater tubes.
10. Weld in front wheel well patch and primer.
11. Install heater hose.
12. Weld on outer long panel.
13. Weld on inner wheel house.
14. Treat entire box with internal frame rust proofing.

Of course, all flanges and weld points will be sprayed with weld-thru primer and then top coated with epoxy after welding is complete.

The Big Challenge

It was time to dig into the rear inner long, which I think will be the hardest part of the entire rustoration. Just to recap, here's what I was dealing with:

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I spent Friday evening and most of Saturday fabbing the patch for the inner long. Because I was missing so much of the piece, it took some thinking to get the piece right and I failed to take pics of the progress. I started by trimming a piece of 18ga. sheet to the horizontal contour of the lower inner wheel house flange using the RD repair panel as the template. Next, I hand hammered a flange along the contour and used the shrinker and stretcher to match the vertical contour and get the flanges to mate perfectly. Then I was able to clamp the patch to the flange remnants on the car and trace the inner edge of the inner long onto the patch. Then, it was over to the vice and anvil for bending and hammering to form the bottom and inside wall. I had to make a couple relief cuts at the bend in the front section because trying to get that much 18ga. metal to tuck was not possible. After a few hours of bending, testing, and reshaping, I had the piece fitting well enough to weld and grind the relief cuts. Finally, I banged in the divot needed to accept the engine mount with a ball peen hammer. The surface of the divot has a hammer texture, but it will all be hidden once the mount is installed. After final trimming, the part looked acceptable.

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And still mates nicely to the RD panel.

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What rust?

After welding and grinding, I now have a solid inner long for the first time since buying this car way back when Cindy Lauper was making me hate music.

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I need to run the magic shrinking disk over a few bumps left from my previous suspension console patch job, but what a relief to have this done. It should be all downhill from here.

Cindy Lauper ...

I'm in between projects at work so was able to take a few days off to make some major progress on the Porsche. Things started moving pretty fast so I didn't do as well with taking pics of progress, but I think I captured the good stuff even if taken out of sequence.

914 Day - fiddly stuff

First up was fabbing this little patch for the rusty hole behind the door latch reinforcement. Easy peasy.

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Next was fabbing the front section of the inner long, inner wall and prepping the long for installation.

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Saturday Sept. 16

Fabricated a new bracket for the front heater tube and bead blasted both tubes and the spring steel mounting clamps for the heater hose. Patched some rust on the bottom of the door hinge post that will be rewelded over the new rocker and gave that a good bead blasting. Again, no pics, but many thanks to my awesome neighbor Rachel for lending me her blasting cabinet.

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Sunday Sept. 17

Welded in the front section of inner wall and a new seat belt mounting bolt from RD. Then I tackled the rear section of inner wall. This was mostly just the flat bottom part so no pics. Most of the day was spent trimming and fitting the inner wheelhouse piece from RD.

Late in the afternoon, all of the parts were ready for primer, so I activated a rattle can of Eastwood's epoxy primer and went to work prepping the long and assorted parts for final assembly. The heater hose mounting clamps got sprayed with Eastwood's rust encapsulator to give them a black finish to more closely match the original finish that looked like it might have been black zinc plating. Yep, I realize nobody will ever see those parts but I'm weird that way.

Here is the inner long with inner walls repaired, seat belt mount in place, and sealed with epoxy primer.

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Monday Sept. 18

I didn't have much time to work on the car, but managed to weld in the heater tubes and rivet in the hose clamps. I chose to use solid rivets to more closely match the factory parts. The only rivets I could locally source had considerably larger heads than the factory rivets, but I still think they look better than pop rivets. But they were a PIA to install compared with pop rivets. Again, I'm screwy that way.

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Lastly, I welded in the inner wheel well patch and sprayed with epoxy. Here is the inner long all assembled and ready to be buttoned up. Don't those black hose clamps look awesome?

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Houston, we have a problem!

My last act of the day was to clamp the outer long on to see how things were fitting. Well shit.

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Tuesday Sept. 19

First order of business was to fix my screw up on that front inner wheel well piece. The old one was cut out and a new one made. This time, I decided to make it easy on myself and simply fab the straight section. It was bending the curve around the front of the long that caused the radius to narrow and not fit the outer long properly. The new plan is to fabricate the curved section as a separate piece after everything else is buttoned down. Leaving that patch for later will also give me easier access for spraying in cavity wax that I hope to pick up from my local paint supplier tomorrow. This new patch will do.

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Spent the rest of the day rechecking measurements and tacking in the outer long and rear inner wheel house. Just enough to hold it in place to check final fitment but easy to remove if some adjustment was needed. The RD wheel house only needed some minor reshaping for perfect alignment. By the end of the day, it was starting to look like a car again. I took this pic a little late, but here's how it looked.

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Thursday Sept. 21 - What Hell Hole?

With the main panels tacked in place, I screwed on the door jamb with zip screws and then bolted on the door to check the gap. Checked measurements again. Everything looked good.

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Time to weld things in place. First was the outer long. I picked up this tool from Eastwood a few years ago and love it for rosette welds. Not only does the clamp hold flanges tightly together, but the copper backing lets me crank up the welder to max voltage for better penetration to the bottom layer.

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I did two rosettes spaced out on top, then two on the bottom; blowing with compressed air after each weld. I made sure everything stayed cool to the touch and checked the door gap after every set. It took a couple hours, but eventually was done. Next I tackled the long process of tacking up the butt weld on the wheel house. Again, just a few blips spaced out with air after each round. When all was finished, the door gap and measuresments were unchanged.

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Not all is perfect though. The lower flange on part of the rear inner long will need some tuning to mate properly with the wheel house. I'm not surprised given the complex fabrication I had to do with a lot of the original piece missing. It isn't bad, but I think it will have to wait until I have the car on a rotisserie so I have better access to hammer things back into proper alignment. I'll just leave that portion unwelded until things can be made perfect. But it feels good to have this monumental part of the rustoration behind me!

I enjoyed reading this, although some was painful to read. Good luck with your teener.

Brent,

You really are doing a super job on restoring your car. I wanted to point out something. I see you have a new floor pan. It is a nice touch to cut the circle and 3 tabs out on the pan and use your old or you can buy NOS inserts so your car will look just like it did when it came from the factory. A lot of guys do not do this but it is a nice touch.

I have seen some guys cut the hole with a circle saw but I did mine with a jigsaw and it went fine. This is my 6 from 6 years ago.

Bob B
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Thanks! Some of it has been painful to live. But its mostly self-inflicted.

Sweet! Yes, I definitely plan to replace the inserts. Glad to hear they can still be found since at least one of mine isn't usable. Nice to see an example of this being done. Thanks for sharing!

Saturday Sept 23 - A little frustrating

Well, today was a mixed bag. Yesterday I sprayed the inside of the lower door hinge post with Jasco and let it soak over night. Rinsed it out this morning and ran the heat gun to dry things out. Made final prep to reattach the lower part of the post. It took longer than expected because I had to include a patch for the back side that is inside the wheel well. There is a lot going on inside that space and access is very tight. The patch slips in behind a flange from the fender and also has to be attached to the back of the hinge mount support inside the box. But I eventually got it in, but still need to grind down the ugly welds and fabricate an end bracket for the rocker cover.

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I saved that grinding for later though because I wanted to get the threshold on. I didn't go too nuts on grinding the weld around the front of the hinge post box since it will be buried under the threshold once it is attached. Here it is prepped with weld-thru primer and ready for the threshold.

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Putting on the threshold was going well until my welder took a shit and stopped feeding wire, which caused some crappy rosette welds that will require extra grinding.. After fiddling around for a half hour, I figured out the gun liner was toast. Luckily I had a spare that would work, but it took a good hour to get the old one out and the replacement in place. With the welder back in action, the threshold was looking really nice:

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With just a little more welding left on the threshold, I decided to install the brackets to make sure everything was proper. Then I hit a significant problem when the bracket didn't fit right. There is about a 2mm gap at the top and front of the upper step

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I took the bracket over to the other side of the car to test it against an original threshold. Perfect fit. I checked the other three brackets, and they were all the same.

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I grabbed the trusty tape measure and discovered that the RD threshold piece is about 2mm deeper, and 2mm wider in the step compared with the original piece. I checked the dimensions of my driver's side RD threshold piece and it's also tall and wide. Yet the RD bracket fits the original profile perfectly.

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I sent a message with these pics to RD to figure out a path forward, but this wont do. I could fab my own brackets to fit, but I think that is going to put the outer rocker covers 2mm lower and 2mm farther out than they should be, which will throw off gaps and alignment. Has anyone else run into this problem? For now, I have abanidoned the threshold until I hear back from RD and moved on to the jack pyramids. Before installing them, I made a template of the recess in the mounting location because I'm pretty sure I'll need to fabricate a patch in that area on the other side.

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No real issues install the jack tube and plate except that my little 120v welder has a hard time with the thick steel of the tube, so the weld beads piled up like turkey shit around them. I did get a good stick though and will just have to dress those up a bit with the grinder. Overall, it came out pretty good but, of course, I need to knock those rosette welds down.

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That's it for today. I was hoping to weld on the door jamb but the threshold SNAFU put a halt to that.

In a jamb

Still plugging away on the project. Peter at RD got back to me right away about my threshold issue. He said they could retool to change the profile on the part, but it would be at least a full year before that could happen. But I figured out that the minor difference in profiles between the new RD threshold and the original wouldn't affect the final fit and alignment of the rocker covers. So I decided to move forward with what I had. This required a simple modification to the brackets to make them fit, but no biggie.

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With the thresholds finished, I welded in the door jamb and latch bracket, installed the latch,

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and checked the door gap. An even 7mm. Once the quarter panel is on, that should close up to ~4-5mm. And the door latches easily with that solid German clunk.

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Harvesting Organs

I've also been busy harvesting hell hole parts from a donor piece I bought last spring. Still some work to do but the hard part is done. Man those suspension consoles are a bitch to get off.

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In theory, I should be able to just bolt the outer console to the dolly and it should be aligned correctly. But I'll be checking measurements just to be sure.

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It's starting to look like a car again.

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Wow, Brent. You are not wasting any time. Keep on rocking. Before you know it you'll be

Thanks Rob,

I was poring through your thread on the suspension console today gleaning tips on getting that placed right. I want to check against the factory alignment but that requires an M10x230mm bolt that I can't find locally. I have an idea to improvise though. I'm really paranoid about getting that bit right.

Sadly, I have a new work project starting next week which will mean less time to work on the car. But I have to pay for this insanity some how.

Mad skills, for sure


Just a suggestion ... I drill extra weep holes in bottom of the jack post supports

Hard to see in this pic but I drilled a 1/4" hole in the bottom left of this one. Would you add more?

Yeah, I put one in each lower corner, so no matter what attitude the car is parked in, it will drain better.

That makes sense. I'll do it. I'm also going to shoot cavity wax in there and refresh it once a year or so.

I'm stoked on your progress! Great work. You're killing it. Keep at it!

!!
Looking REALLY good. And if it's anything like what I experience, it looks even better in real life.

There are lots of us looking forward to each your updates so get back out there and keep up the great work!

Very nice work. Did the same inner long work to my car. Doing the same to dion's car this winter. Sent him this thread as motivation. Keep it up!!

Threshold - take three



Funny you should mention this. I've wasted way too much time just staring at this side of the car and admiring how nice it looks. But the more I stared, the more something was bugging me. The threshold gap below the door looked wide toward the front. I tried to convince myself it was just an illusion caused by the rust in the lower right corner of the door. But no. Somehow the narrow section of threshold that goes around the hinge post had slipped low before I welded it. I think the torque of the zip screws I used to pull the seam tight probably did it. Anyway, I spent an hour cutting that part loose and rewelding. Looks better now but not anything that shows up in a pic.

Mostly grunt work today

The rest of the day was a lot of work but not much worth photographing. This morning I installed this new tank purging valve on my compressor. I thought I had enough wire on hand to wire up a 120 outlet to plug into. I was wrong so will have to wait for my next trip to town before wiring it in.

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My compressor is in an unheated shed and it is usually chilly here, so despite our low humidity, it still produces a lot of water. I had one of those cheap HF valves on it which worked well through the summer. But after the first night below freezing (we've already had a couple of snows), it started leaking. This one should do better,

While I was in there, I also installed a union joint to make things easier if I ever have to move the compressor again.

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Most of the day was spent cutting the old gussets off of the donor suspension consoles and grinding off those welds. Then a final bead blasting and a soak down with Jasco to kill any rust that might still be hiding in seams. I bought the first set of gussets from 914Rubber after Mark put them on the site and they are on the way. I really like recycling donor parts but these consoles chew up a lot of time cleaning and prepping.

Hopefully, I'll get the outer console attached tomorrow. I mentioned I needed an ~230mm long M10 bolt to follow the factory procedure to check the alignment spec for this part. Good luck finding one. Googling turned up one in a warehouse in Germany. McMaster-Carr and Belmetric both top out at 200mm. Fastenal carries 220mm and 240mm which would work, but $20 shipped. My improvisation was to buy the longest M10 I could find locally, cut it in two pieces, and weld a piece of steel tube between to get the right length. Seems to have worked out okay.

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Since I don't have any interesting pics from today, here's a pic of some of the other residents here. This was taken from our deck.

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I see only Moose. Where is Squirrel?

Boris

Squirrel on porch. Here is Squirrel:

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Must catch squirrel.

Very impressive work! Your doing a great job. I can appreciate that feeling of seeing it come together. Keep the photos comming

Wow! Great job.

Not sure what I like best?

The great work you've been doing on your project or....

the incredible wildlife you have up in your neck of the woods.

In a few years, I might move a bit more towards the great outdoors like you up in northern Idaho away from the hectic life here in Portland.

Thanks all for the compliments. I'm just muddling through, doing the best that I can. Matty, your car is my aspiration. A true work of art. Raynecat, I hope you do make it to northern Idaho. We love living here. I'll keep throwing in some wildlife shots from time to time. It's why I live here.

Skeletons in the Closet

This morning I decided to change my game plan. For a number of reasons, I'm going to hold off on installing the suspension console until I can flip the car on a rotisserie. This list of things that need to wait until this pig is on a spit keeps growing. So I decided to turn my attention to the driver's side long. First, I needed to see if I could turn this car around, in a small garage filled with too much crap, so I'd have room to work on the long. These pics make my garage look huge. Trust me, it's not! Turning this car was like a Chinese tile puzzle. Move stuff out of the way, Move the car into the vacated space. Move stuff again, repeat. At one point, I was able to move my table saw with only an inch of clearance. But I got the job done, and it's good to know I can do that without having to roll the car outside on the gravel. MUCH easier on the concrete.

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First, an inspection of what I'm dealing with.

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As usual, the driver's side isn't nearly as bad as the hell hole, but it still needs help. The outer long is rusting through in spots so has to be replaced.

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Many years ago, I patched in a rust hole and welded in a new jack plate. I did a pretty crappy job so that all has to be cut out and redone.

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The long is rusted out under the jack plate and I had previously cut out a section for inspection before the restoration went into deep hibernation. That would have been the same year that Chernobyl exploded. No, really!

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The door gap is 13mm wide at the top on this side so I'm hoping to fix that. The measurement from roll bar to windshield frame is 7mm too wide. I"m pretty sure I caused this by putting the car on jack stands when I did the crappy patch repair.

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Once I got the outer long cut off, it took just 3/4 turn on the door brace to bring that measurement back into spec.

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With the long open, I made a thorough inspection.

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The inner long is rusted through in a few spots along the lower wall near its midpoint.

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There are also a couple small holes at the very front that I couldn't get a good pic of. I think I'll be able to patch those without removing that PIA heater tube. The worst is the section behind the jack plate which will require some fabrication. But I won't know how much I bunged up the inner wall with the original repair until I cut the quarter panel as I did on the passenger's side, and remove that jack pyramid.

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The only surprise was finding this humerus bone among the rust and debris. It is probably from the same weasel whose skull I found in the front trunk during my initial cleaning.

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That's as far as I got today. Next step is to remove that jack pyramid and then wheel the car into the tent to blast these areas with crushed glass. Then I will evaluate how much metal needs to be replaced and form a plan from there.

Moose outside, Squirrel in house and now Weasel in the long...
The Yellow Brick Road has nothing on you!

Love that you're sharing your adventure with us.

Ha! The squirrel was still outside. When you come inside the house, it gets downright weird. Here is juat a sample of what lurks within these walls, or did in the past.


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I WILL come and visit you! Not "try", not "plan"... WILL!

Wait, even better and more accurate: MUST! I MUST come visit!



(Like I need more motivation to get my car on the road...)

ARGH!!!

Well... setbacks today. I tried to set up to do a little blasting today, but winter is fighting its way into the Northern Rockies a tad early this year and my air hose kept freezing up.

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My plan was to use this panel to replace mine, but I got it for free because it has been worked on before. I knew the lower section of the door jamb would need to be patched. But needed to clean it up to make sure the rest was sound.

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I spent a lot of time yesterday separating the outer skin from the roll bar reinforcement the hard way. And when I got it open, I found this of a gift inside. A poor patch to say the least.

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This panel is no better than the one I cut off. Between that, and the door jamb issue, it is trash. Oh wait, I will be able to use this:

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I took a closer inpspection of the other side where I was planning to use just the sail panel. It's even worse:

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Sooo... Looks like RD will be getting more of my money for two sail panels and another door jamb. That will make reassembly a lot easier at least. I'm waffling on biting the bullet and adding a front floor panel to the order. Mine needs a lot of patch work. Doable, but will probably require at least a week. Having an all shiny new floor is appealing but will mean another big freight bill too. The lesson here is to make sure you have ALL of your donor panels prepped BEFORE placing your sheet metal order.

I think I'm going to try to take my driver's quarter panel off while leaving the door jamb on so I can continue to check the door gap while I work on the long. Oh well, onward ho!

Some goodies arrived

On Monday I received my back ordered engine shelf from RD.

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And yesterday, my suspension mount gussets arrived from 914Rubber.

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I also placed another order with RD yesterday. I decided to bite the bullet and ordered the front floor pan. I think it will make for a better end product.

More excavation

I continued the archeology to figure out just how far the tinworms have spread on this side. First I cut off the jack pyramid to reveal my old patch. It actually wasn't too bad if you ignore the ugliness. Just a flat plate welded over the inner wall with a square hole cut in for the jack tube.

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If it weren't for all the rot around it, it was a structurally sound repair, but not up to the standards I'm aiming for now. We can do better.

Then I wheeled the car out to the tent for a frustrating afternoon of media blasting with crushed glass. It is snowy and cold outside which caused my safety glasses to want to fog up with my P95 mask on. And moisture had gotten into the pressure pot, causing the media to cake and not flow. But eventually I was able to get enough done to make a good assessment.

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Unfortunately, the result is not good. While there is less rot on this side, I'm still going to have to rebuild the entire floor and lower wall of the inner long like I did on the passenger side. The differences are that I have most of the original to use as a pattern, the corrosion stops much lower on the side wall so I think I can do this without pulling those blasted heater tubes, and the curved part of the rear of the front wheel house is still solid so I don't have to replicate that compound bend.

The rear inner wheelhouse section is in much better shape than the hell hole but is still going to be work. The floor is gone below the jack support and the inner wall needs repair from the hump for the engine mount forward. But it's going to be tricky because access to that area is poor since the inner wheel house is solid rearward of the jack support.

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The floor looks gooey in this shot because I had just sprayed it down with Jasco. The metal is a little pitted but still solid rearward of the engine mount hump. I think it will be fine with a Jasco treatment and epoxy primer followed by cavity wax.

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Tomorrow I will cut off the doughnut triangle under the heater tube to get better access the the outside wall of the inner long. I know it is rusted through in a small spot where it passes through the firewall. I'm worried I may need to remove the engine mount to get access to make necessary repairs. I'd like to avoid that of course.

A Big Wind!
Well... on my to-do list for the weekend was pulling the cover off of the tent garage so it didn't collapse under the snow this winter. Friday night, a warm front came through with high winds gusting up to 56 MPH. At 4 am, I looked out the window and everything looked fine. At 6:30 am, I looked outside and "Bubba's room was gone!" That, BTW, is a direct quote I heard a guy say on the news when describing the aftermath of an Oklahoma tornado tearing through his trailer court. Here's what was left of Bubba's room Saturday morning:

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And here's where I found Bubba's room. The only thing that kept it from blowing into the next county (which is only a couple hundred feet up the road) was a rope attached to the tent that wrapped around one of the trailing arms of my car. They apparently make good anchors.

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The actual anchors were still firmly in the ground:

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But the cheap-ass cable clamps failed.

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Now I remember thinking that I should replace those clamps when I set up the tent. But I forgot. To add insult, I have a pile of good ones in the garage. The tent is a little torn up, but nothing some gorilla tape won't fix. But I won't put it back up until spring... which means mid-June around here.

Fab-a-dabba-doo

Despite the late start on the car, I managed to finish cutting out the rusted sections of the driver's inner long.

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Then I set to work fabricating a new lower section of the long. By the end of the day, I had the front half mostly done:

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This morning, I worked on the recess for the e-brake handle. Getting that banged out to align perfectly was just loads of fun. Of course, bending that metal shrank the back wall, which warped the piece. So I had to use my shrinker on the welding flange followed by some hammering on the anvil to straighten things back out. It wasn't too hard, just took time. But I finally got the recess in pretty good shape. It will require a little hammer and dolly work to fine tune it once it is tacked in place.

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Fabbing the rear section only took a couple hours since it is a much simpler piece. By late evening, I had the two halve melted together and trimmed. Ready to install.

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Not a bad looking piece if I say so myself.

And about an hour ago, I had the piece tacked into place.

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Looks great.. I wish when I made mine I had something to follow to make the recesses like you did but nothing for a pattern could be found.. I still need to figure that out..

Nice work Montana! Following your thread and soon to be looking out for your car. Great job!

* it was blowin a hawks ass here as well... time to adjust (the lean) for winter.

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Ben PMed me about dimensions for the recesses in the inner long floors. I figured I'd post here in case it helps anyone in the future. Sorry for this crude drawing. I am neither an artist or draftsman and no longer have a CAD program on my computer.

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Notes:
- Areas marked recesses are recessed when viewed from the bottom of the long and raised when viewed from the inside surface.

-The long channel along the length of the inner wall forms the recess where the floor pan is welded on.

- All channels running perpendicular to the long channel start at full depth from the long channel, and taper to near zero depth as the approach the outer edge.

- Left and right longs are mirror images of each other.

- The rear sections of both my longs were rusted out, so I've marked the area where I have just assumed the channel layout. My assumption is that the long channel extends as far as the rear edge of the floor pan, and there is one additional perpendicular channel spaced the same distance apart as the two shallow channels. If someone has better pieces for pattern, maybe they can correct these assumptions.

- I used both centimeters and millimeters i the measure,ents, so pay attention to the units.

Hopefully this helps someone.

Ha! Hawk's ass. That's just about right.

Good progress today. I finished welding in lower inner long patch. Then trimmed an dry fit the outer from RD. Then I tackled the outer wall patch for the area under the jack support.

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I was going to make a hammer form for that pyramid recess under the jack support using 3/16" steel. But I didn't have any on hand and didn't want to wait until my next trip into town. So I decided to give it a go just hammer with the help of the vice and anvil. If you can forgive a few hammer marks, I think it will look close to factory fresh once it is burned in.

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Next up is fabbing patches for the inner walls of both sides of the long.

Holy Toledo! Your car is WAY apart. I'm always in awe of you guys who (seem to) think nothing of lopping off 1/2 the side of their car.

There should be a club/t-shirt for folks who pull off this sort of thing.
Continued great results as you soldier on!

Says the guy who has basically re-engineered and built his car from scratch... And didn't you just put a complete floor pan on that machine?

Lol Chris I assume you are talking about me as well.. That's the fun isn't it making something out of nothing..

Ben - Yep, you, bbrock and Dion come immediately to mind. I know there are others, too, that I'd lump in with you metal cuttin' crazies!

Oh Yeah, that list is LONG! And there is no way I'd be doing this if others hadn't documented their processes before me. We are only the current cohort standing on the shoulders of giants.

I've gotten behind on updates so let's get caught up. Let's start with some more sheet metal porn. These arrived last Wednesday:

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Now back to work. First up was finishing welding in the inner long floor. That went pretty well.

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Next, I welded in the outer wall, inner side patch behind the jack support. That little piece took forever to get right. Between the compound curves and limited access, it was a booger to get shaped and trimmed. You can see my whoopsy where I trimmed too much off of a corner. I'm not too worried about that though because once the inner wall is in, it should be easy enough to fill in that corner with the welder. But still...

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Now let's patch that inner wall. This was another piece that was a PIA to get shaped and prepped.

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Tin worms had gotten to part of the inner wall over the hump for the engine mount bracket, but luckily, the outer wall had a little pitting, but was still sound. My plan was to include that area in the larger inner wall patch. But due to limited access, I couldn't get that little whoopty-do shaped and trimmed accurately as an integral appendage to the patch. So I made a template with tracing paper and just cut a small piece of sheet metal to patch that separately. Even then, there was no room to manipulate the welding gun, so the the welds look like turkey shit. But structurally, it is sound.

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Next the larger patch and outer wall were prepped, and the patch was welded in.

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Again, space was so tight inside that area that I had just enough room to stick the gun in with a bare hand. So the rearward portion of the weld job is a bit of a shit show, but structurally sound. I take no pride in this part of the repair. But the only option to make that area look pretty would be to open up the inner wheel well to provide better access like I had on the passenger side. But that option seemed like it was fraught with a lot of risk for limited reward.

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Now it was time to tackle the inner wall of the jack support. This is a complicated piece and I was going to build a hammer form from maple or 3/16" steel, but then I happened to notice a scrap of 3" schedule 40 PVC in the shop and thought that might offer a simpler option. Sure enough, the PVC fit very close to the diameter of the doughnut I needed to create.

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So I drilled a 2" hole in a piece of sheet metal with a hole saw, then hammered it into a doughut using a wooden mallet and the PVC for a form. This would have been easier if I'd have cut the PVC down so I was hammering lower on the bench. But my table saw was covered with crap and I'm lazy.

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I was able to raise a reasonable facsimile of the original doughnut. It isn't an exact match, but very close and functionally equivalent. The doughnut on the original is sunk in an hourglass-shaped recess to make it fit tight against the pyramid of the outer wall. I created the recess by lining up the piece on the edge of my anvil and tapping at an angle with the edge of my mallet. This took a bit of finesse, but I was happy with the result.

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Here's the final result.

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Tuesday, Oct. 17 - the anti-climax

I spent a few hours grinding down welds and prepping things for epoxy primer. Everything was given a treatment with Jasco the night before. Then cleaned and wiped down with wax and grease remover, and all flanges and butt weld areas were masked before primer. I pulled my second ratte can of Eastwood Epoxy Primer off the shelf and found it was defective. I felt like a Who down in Whoville who, after weeks of preparation and anticipation, woke on Christmas Day to find the Grinch had been busy. That exciting moment of paint and reassembly would have to wait. I should say that this wasn't Eastwood's fault. They had already replaced the defective can. No need to bore with details except that I thought the original can was still usable, and it wasn't. My bad.

Wednesday, Oct 18 - Primer, finally

I had a gallon of very expensive PPG DPLF series epoxy primer on hand, but no way to spray it. My only spray gun is an ancient siphon-fed high pressure pot, and I wasn't going to waste my $325/gallon primer through an inefficient gun. The next day, I took a trip to the local HF to pick up one of their cheap HVLP spray guns. It is good enough for primer, I think.

The new gun worked well. It was my first experience working with 2K paint or an HVLP gun. My how painting has improved over the decades! But in my excitement, I forgot to take a picture of all the nicely primed parts.

Yesterday, Oct, 19

I tried my best to shoot primer all the way to the rear of the long, but couldn't get it done. So I engineered and fabricated this high tech remote access primer delivery system.

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And I at least got a pic of that result.

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After this cures a week or two, I'll follow up with some Eastwood Internal Frame Coating as backup for any spots that might have been missed. And all cavities will be sprayed with cavity wax.

Reinstalling the the rear heater tube and hose went without a hitch. The outer paper wall of the heater hose split slightly when I removed it, so I put a wrap of Gorilla tape on just for a little added reinforcement. Would have been fine without, but I wanted to be sure. It would be nice to be able to clean that hose before reinstall, but didn't want to risk destroying it.

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Then the jack area patch went in. I thought of all kinds of ways to offset the inner and outer wall welds, which is preferred. But access limited options and every alternative I could think of was fraught with risk. So I decided to chamfer the butt weld gap so I could make sure to run a puddle into both layers. It seemed to work well and the result is acceptable.

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Then I welded in the front wheel well patch that extends into the long.

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I wanted to primer the backs of those butt welds, so I designed and frabricated a space-aged limited tolerance primer delivery tool.

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And finally it was ready to fit the outer long! I like to weld up the patch area at the front first. That way, the piece can move with any shrinking that occurs from the butt weld without pulling the whole frame structure.

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That was a lot to cover. Today I'll dry fit the door jamb with zip screws and refit the door so I can check gaps while I weld up the long. I'm running low on MIG gas, so we'll see how far I get.

totally ,hats off to you guys....huge undertaking .