metal patching help!!! where do i start???

well i bought a new car and 50 pontiac and like every car in the south it needs rockers, floors, and the front section of the quater pannel, i know they make all this patch pannels since they interchange with chevy but what should i do first? does it make a difference?

 

I would start with teh stuff that wont show, floor and body mounts. Once those are done any adjustments to teh doors etc can be done and then move to the outer stuff.

Basically structure first, then the purty's.

 

Structure first is right. If the lack of rocker panels is throwing off the door gaps, then square it up and put inner and outer rockers on first. You don't want to put floors in first if the bottoms of the door openings are spread out, because you won't be able to pull them back together once the floors are welded up solid.

Post some pics if you can. You'll save a lot of headaches by planning ahead and doing this in the right order, but the best order might depend on how bad the rust is and where it is.

 

Also, make sure your door hinges are not worn out and that your doors are lined up with good gaps. You've got to have the gaps right before you do heavy structural welding, because if the door opening isn't right when you start, it'll never be right.

 

exactly...

 

fought that battle (and lost) replacing the rockers and floor in my '52 Plymouth. i didn't have the driver's door straight as possible, and ended up with bad fit. establish your door openings, rebuild your foundation, then take it piece by piece from there on. (i traded the '52 or i'd have redone the job)

 

Hey,


So, how come you didn't say anything about the frame's condition? Any vehicle with that much rusty sheetmetal will have some frame rust/rot!
I'd look over the torque boxes, the kick up over the back axel, the cross member/s and the dumb irons veryyyyyyyyyyyyyy carefuly. You may have to let in some metal to the rails or cut out mounts or cross members, and may well be lookin at a frame off BEFORE you get into sheetmetal. You may well get lucky, and only have minor repairs to the frame, but I'd start with a plan as to what you can buy, repop wise, vs. what you'll have to build or get from a clean parts car. None of this is rocket science, but you do need a good plan, or you'll piss away alot of time & cash.

" Spending a nation into generational debt is not an act of comp***ion "

 

the body should support the doors, even without a "frame'...

 

thanks for the advice guys, i also need to replace the door bottom on both sides, im going to try to buy all the patch panels and take section by section

im not using the frame pimpin, i already own a 50 pontiac 2 sedan and im going to do a body swap with this one witch is a hardtop

 

1) the 49-54 chevy frames do not rot much. Have had bodies totaly gone and the frame is still good


2) the floors and trunk are the last!!!!!!!!!!! Place to start.

3) you want the car to look good at the shows, first the rear tailpan or firewall long story short it helps get body aligned.

4) doors next and this will apply to the trunk lid too. Make the doors fit the body, get your gap good nomially 1/8inch. With bad floors and trunk it is easy to adjust the body to fit the doors. If you weld the floor in first then it is harder to adjust the body to make the doors fit and then you may need to recut some of the floors loose to get the doors to fit.

After the doors fit drop the floors in if ya gotta trim the floors to fit so what it is inside where it can be seen.

It is a little harder to support the body with bad floors but in the long run you end up with a nicer looking car