Mark has been busy since Thursday. He cut and fitted the passenger Floor Pan, Floor to Firewall Extension and the Rear Pan Extension. It was more work having the pans in three pieces but I think that was easier to manipulate.We still need to weld thru to the frame rails .
The pans laid in really nice. They are very solid and look great. The rear extension is a bit high but we figured we will be able to still fit it. The pans had to be stretched a bit to get them to fit just right. Mark decided to weld the entire seam instead of spot welds. This will make the floor a bit more rigid. It does take a bunch longer to finish but I like what I see.
The pans were not butt welded, This was a choice for time and strenght. The new pans were inserted from the top. This gave a lip on the bottom. There is not a wide overlap. Mark was able to fashion the overlap nice and close. We are going to tack a few spots and them use a seam sealer. It is the plan to prime then we will be undercoating the car. I realize this is not an original feature but remember...This is a driver not a show car, I want the work to last, We will not be doing this again. Hopefully my grand kids will be stuck with that task after I am long gone.
We will need to stretch the rear extension too. They will be welded to the frame rails soon.
Now it is time to get started on the driver side. The "Blair" tool really does a nice job, BUT...I was having a tough time with it today. I was able to get the top of the inner rocker drilled out, ( approx. 30 spot welds) then the tool broke. A tooth broke and then the tip and then the shaft broke at the thread.
I was taking my time but it seems to have a design problem. The shaft that the hole saw portion of the tool attaches to, is very thin. I believe the tool could be made better by increasing the shaft diameter and also using a better steel on the saw part itself.
I will say that when the tool was working, I found the "magic depth" of the tool. When done correctly the spot weld drops out as a plug and leaves the Outer Rocker perfect and ready for the new Inner Rocker welds.
The brace that attaches the back of the rear seat support was cut to get to the very back of the Inner Rocker. There is a bunch of rust on it so we may need to patch parts of that.
Mark used a Plasma Cutter to take off the top of the Inner Rocker. This made it a bit easier to get to the old welds.
This is looking up into the Inner Rocker after the side has been cut away. They were in really bad shape.
The frame rail has rust that will need to be treated and hopefully not replaced.
