Projects Nothing to see here - Just another boring Merc build

I don't think he welded it. He bought it that way and has used it successfully.

 

Firewall to door jamb support. Mouse motel.

Got most of it out. Will need a mask & air hose for the rest.

Here's the cheap eBay floor pan sitting in place. It will need pretty extensive work to make it acceptable. Deciding if it's worth the time & effort, or find a better alternative.

 

I have used them before. Not all that bad. A little nip and tuck snipping, some hammering. It will be good.

 

I'm thinking I'll try it. Probably first thing to do would be to go over those bead rolls. They seem pretty shallow and not rounded. I'll have to make the edge that the center section bolts to as well.

 

Yea. There is usually something that needs added to the evil bay parts. More work cutting fitting and grinding back the welds but the major part to fill a cut out rust hole is there.

 

Removed the sill plates. Looks pretty good for a WI car. Inner rockers will need some minor work. I'll replace the outers.
My underfloor brake set up finally arrived from POL. On back order for about 6 months.
Got electric door openers on my shop doors! Those 12'X14' doors were getting a little heavy for this old guy.

 

I wasn't happy with the shallow "V" shaped beads in these eBay floor pans, so I went over them with my Baileigh bead roller. Much improved.

I also was thinking I was going to cut the old floor where the metal is still good, and add these where needed, but realized the bead work on the new pans isn't in the same place as the original floor. The beads won't match up, so I'll probably have to join them on the flats and take out more than I was hoping to do.

The fun begins. You can see I took just part of the lip off the floor extension (if that's what it's called) as the rest looks pretty good. I'll make that part and weld it on after I do the main floor pan. I'll have to duplicate the lip I left on for now, that the trans cover bolts to. This is just the initial cuts. More will be removed.

 

dynamat might camoflauge that....

 

@patsurf I will be adding some sort of sound/heat insulation to the floor after it's done. And no one but me will ever see it, but I want it to at least look like I know what I'm doing.

 

Finally got the balls to turn the rotisserie:

This thing is sketchy. Every car is worse than we think. Had to cut off part of the rocker to get to the inner. It's got to be changed anyway:

It could be worse:

Oops! Sharp rusty metal!

Making the inner pieces, shouldn't be too hard. Figuring out how to remove the rust, and what to coat the inside of it with, still in thought process.

 

Tet**** booster time!

 

^^^^^^^ Definitely! We all need them doing what we do,

 

Rust repair ****s. Making inner patches.

Next up is replicating the piece I cut out.

After I do that, and weld it back on here, what do y'all recommend for the surface rust inside the box? Rust converter? Maybe the Eastwood inner frame coating would be good here too?

 

Got ol' Cap'n Crunch helping me out again.

After much cutting and one bend (top).

This looks like it's gonna work. Much more t******* & bending & shrinking & stretching to come.

 

^^^^^ Patterns. Saves time and waste.

 

Pizza boxes are traditional!

 

I made an extender to get the Por15 as far into the rocker box as possible. I still might remove the whole rocker panel, so that will give me more access.

Well, ****. I found another rust hole in the right rear p***enger footwell.

I originally planned to coat the floors with POR15, but I'm having second thoughts. Suggestions for how to handle this? It's not gonna be a trailer queen with mirrors under it at shows. It's a nice driver, that I want to be around long after I'm gone.

 

I would back it up with a piece of copper and mig it, grind it and, wala.

 

@warhorseracing Yup. That's the plan for the "huge" rust hole, but I was asking the best thing to coat the bottom of the floors with. POR15 works good on the surface rust, but there's a lot of decent metal under this thing. It may be better to use rust converter, epoxy primer and topcoat it with something. Maybe bedliner? I'm not sure the POR15 will adhere to the clean metal as well as I'd like it to.

 

No more rust hole here

I won't post the other part I was fixing. I chased a pinhole with the mig for about 10 minutes. I had so much weld on there, it had to be OK. And it was, until I ground the weld too far. Then, I cut it out and replaced it. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.

 

I'm not the world's best fabricator, but I can usually make something work, and it looks like this will. It was fun(ish) to use my Baileigh shrinker/stretcher again, but I need much more practice to be good at this stuff. I had planned to make this one piece, going as far forward as needed. Miscalculation, and I cut it too short. So, I'll need to make another piece for the front area. More welding. Yeah! I'm not a fan of welding sheet metal. I'm thinking I might clamp the pinch weld tight and use my old Lenco panel spot welder to attach it on the bottom. Otherwise, I'll have to try to take it back off (won't be easy), and drill for rosette welds.

 

That'll work.

 

As I stated, I wanted to make all this with one piece. My fab skills didn't let me. So, I decided to make it in two. Except I cut the rear piece too short. So, three will work. Still have some fine-tuning to do, but the inner/structural parts are all there now. I should have taken a before pic. The p***enger's side (this one) is worse than the driver's side. I had to get all this in place before I attempt the floor replacement. This takes time and is dirty work. I don't recommend it.

 

It's time to pull the lower 1/4 panel off. To see what I'm working with, here's a couple of pics:

That's from in the wheel well. The front part is a replacement panel, and it's not a very good one from what I can see. The rear is an original but cut in half above the wheel opening. This genius even cut the stainless trim and overlapped it too on one side. Both 1/4s are done this way.
Here's what the PO did to make it work for him:

Not pretty, but I'm thinking I can make these panels work.
I got it off, and this is what the inside panel between the door & wheel looks like:

From the inside:

Looks like somebody took a hatchet to it, but I have no idea why. I could have left it, as it'll never be seen, but I started straightening and patching. It won't have to be perfect, but I couldn't leave it like this.

 

Perfect time to fix it right. Cut it out and weld in a new piece of metal.

 

Decided to do some straightening, and patching, rather than replacing the whole piece. Bottom left (mostly) welded in. Right side has been welded in after this pic. I shrunk (heat & hammer/dolly & cooled) the stretched parts in the middle & cut out the hatchet holes & made a patch. Too busy with other things to be in the shop the past couple of days, and it's damn hot here too. No hurry, I guess.

 

Anybody know where to get these rubber seals that are under the rear quarters? Or is there something else to use?

 

I bought a 20 ft roll of rubber seal that is the same or very similar. I'll get you a pic and if you want some of it, I can send you some for the price of shipping.

 

The seal is 5/8" X 5/16".

 

@kls50 That looks pretty close to what's on the rear part. Sending a PM.