Tank and hinge post done

still a little clean up work to do on the hinge post - ran out of welding gas :)





Here's the before pic

more progress

1st coat of wurth stoneguard on the tank and welded in the front corner of the tub. Getting the new sheet metal to match up with the existing metal is a serious pain in the @ss. Lot's of cutting and hammer/dolly work.

Seat Rail Support

This was a pain. Completely rusted out. Had to use what was left to create a template for a new piece. Used a hammer and dolly to recreate the shape and then weld in place.

Gas tank

step 1 - Eastwood rust encapsulator (next step is Wurth stoneguard)

Started with stripped tank

Back at it

Much more fun to be in the garage now that the weather is nice. Rust repairs should start to move more quickly now. Just finished replacing the inner longitudinal on the driver's side. Had to fab the piece which was not easy. Also finished the repairing the section between the wheel well and the hinge post. Cut out the lower hinge post and left front section of the tub. Finalizing the new sheet metal and should have them welded in shortly.

Longitudinal cut out



It was in bad shape - a lot worse on the rocker side than the interior



Fabricated a new piece with hammer and dollie





New piece welded in (and patch in sill)




Repaired area behind wheel well and under fender joining panel



Lower hinge post and corner of tub cut and ready for repair

Gas tank is home

I stripped all the undercoating and then sent it off to be resealed. When I drained the gas it looked like Mississippi River water. Looks great on the inside now.

Decided to add more support braces

Added an additional level and more attachment points. This sucker is solid now. Man it's fun welding on thicker material.

It's interesting how these cars rust. This picture is a little hard to see, but it is a view of the driver's side channel between the inner and outer longitudinal. It is looking towards the rear of the car toward the torsion bar tube with the interior of the car on the left and exterior on the right. You can see where the torsion bar tube meets the exterior of the car in the upper right you can also see some factory MIG blow through

The interesting thing is that the panels show no rust on the outside. This rust has traveled down on the inside from the channel between the inner longitudinal (sill area) and the inner/outer rocker which was incredibly rusty.

After a break for the holidays, it's back to work

The sound of the floor pan hitting the garage floor was very sweet. Much more difficult than I thought. Made a lot easier with the air chisel, but there were so many patches and welds on top the regular spot welds that it took a long time. I was surprised by how heavy it is.








The right tools are everything...the air chisel rocks

Picked up some sport seats

Not quite period correct but they'll be great

Hinge post

Got the replacement piece for the driver's side hinge post ready. Took longer than I expected to get it separated from the donor section. I need to figure out how high to cut. Don't really want to go above the lower hinge area or the door might be a pain to line up correctly. But, the back of the hinge area is rusted. I'll tackle this whole area after floors. Alignment should be fun.





Donor sections:

Floor Boards

Almost ready to drop the floor boards. Finished welding in a frame to provide some support once the floor boards come out. That will allow me to do the repair work to the inner rockers before moving on to the outer sheet metal. Not pretty, but it came out okay. Have most of the spot welds cut (seems like hundreds) and now need to cut the forward section.

Pedal Cluster

Finally pulled the pedal cluster and it's badly pitted so the search for a new one has begun.

Back to work

After a break over the holidays and too much time looking for a new job I finally got back to work on the car. Pulled the gas tank after finding huge amounts of rust in the gas. Striped it to bare metal and it's off to a radiator shop to be boiled and resealed. Will also replace the fittings and likely the hard lines once I pull the floor boards and get into the tunnel.

Picked up some headers on ebay - going to go without heat, also looking for a sport exhaust (thinking about doing a 3 outlet rally style).