The Beginning The Donor Floorpans Wiring and Interior
Cutting out the rust Heater channels and support rails Brakes Reassembly
The motor runs! Paint Prep Paint Top
December 24, 2002
The next task is to fix the cancerous rear body supports. These hold the body to the pan. On the convertible, they had been chopped away as the previous owner had made a roughshod effort to remove them in order to make the body fit the 1968 pan - which doesn't have these supports. So the plan is to cut this piece out, also removing the rusted parts of the support and replace them with the donor car's supports. Here, I'm grinding the old support out of the car.
The support is out. There is a piece of steel that reinforces the inner wheel well. I left some of it in to reference the fitting of the new piece so I'd be sure to get the alignment right.
This is the new piece cut from the donor car. The luggage shelf is tacked to the back of this piece. There is some cancer on this "new" piece as well, so I will weld in pieces to fix this before I put it in the car.
After hours of figuring and cutting along with patching the bad spots on the donor piece, I've got the piece in place. In spite of measuring twice and cutting once, I missed dimensions on the back of this, leaving a gap at the back and top.
This is a piece I formed to fit in the gap where I messed up the measurements shown on the last pic. I probably have an hour or so just fitting this piece. Show's I ought to keep my day job!
All welded in, and ground down.
Shaping up, here's the piece primed. Can hardly tell its a new piece, huh?
December 26, 2002
I've cut out the other side's bracket. Here is the donor bracket next to the bracket I cut out of the car.
This time I was better at getting the cuts right. Looks much better than the other one, no gaps.
Welded and primed.
May, 2003 I forgot to take pictures as this work progressed. I cut the old bracket out and found the metal underneath gone and cancerous. So all that came out, then the new bracket was welded into place. (I regret not having pics of the new metal before I put the bumper bracket on, as it showed my increased talent of welding much smoother lines!)
September, 2003

This is the other rusted bumper bracket and wheelwell. The bracket is welded to the mount while the mount is rusted through as is the wheelwell. So its marked for removal.
Here I'm cutting out the wheelwell. That cut-off tool is a fine instrument of destruction!

My mask is sprayed with primer - one time at the workbench, something fell or something causing something else to move, on and on, resulting in the spray can of primer being touched off. Actually I heard it before I saw it, couldn't figure out where the smoke was coming from, moved something and found paint can just raising hell with the workbench! Fortunately, the mask was the only main casualty! I was able to wipe some off, but it still leaves peripheral vision lacking...
The cut out piece laying on the stock on the workbench. I used it as a template, made the appropriate breaks at the bottom flange and other bends the new piece required with the vise and anvil.
Once the new metal was shaped correctly, its in place ready to be welded. That metal stock rusts very quickly. Both here and in the previous picture, you can see where month old fingerprints have started to rust.
All welded in and primered. I've also welded the bumper bracket to the newly replaced wheel well.

I found the bumper brackets at the Manassas bug show a year or so ago. When test fitting the actual bumper bracket (the piece that bolts from here to hold the bumper) I found that this side takes different size bolts than the other side. I paid 5 bucks for each of the brackets. This one is a German (based on the label) replacement part, while the other side is aftermarket. The other side uses standard 8mm bolts (installed with a 13 mm wrench) but this side seems to take smaller bolts? If you have any recent experience with the size bolts I'll need, let me know!
November, 2003
Today is a beautiful day. Taking a break from raking leaves, I took on the right wheel well corner, at the leading edge of the rear fender.

Inside the ellipse, earlier, before I got the camera, I replaced the metal in the corner, ground it down and painted it. Here, I'm working on the corner right above where a captive bolt to mount the corner of the fender is located.
Here's the piece that will be welded in. It has a bunch of compound corners and needs to have a hole drilled to accept the bolt. The worry is that the metal just above the new piece is pretty thin, so I hope it won't burn through when it gets hot.
All welded in ground down. I ran into some problems burning through as I'd worried about. Also, I'm hoping I didn't take too much metal away from the quarter panel. I'm out of primer, so that will have to wait...
2-22-04
The next area to tackle is the spare tire well in the front of the car. I threw this picture in to reference the area. Today's project involves replacing the bottom of the spare tire well which has significant rust and holes.
The infected area.
A shot from the bottom, the yellow rectangle marks the area to be cut out and replaced. The bottom is depressed in several spots - I'm not sure whether that is original design or whether it was stressed into that formation. In any case, I'm going to have a flat bottom, figuring that I'll wait to find another car in good shape then retrofit whatever "stock" is for this piece.
The infected piece has been cut out. What remains still shows rust, but its minimal compared to the removed area, and is cut at natural creases or overlaps. The front of this bottom piece is actually lapped over the back of the front apron section and spotwelded into place. I cut behind the overlap, then removed the remaining metal with a chisel.
The new piece is fit into place. This is the second piece of metal I cut, I'd neglected the rule of "Measure twice, cut once" and forgot about the overlapping 1/2 inch. I used the metal I'd cut out as a template, which didn't include the overlap, hence another cut and another piece of metal was required.

You know, I get this sheet metal at a local hardware store. I wonder if the American and German metal will interact ok with one another, as it will be tough to get German sheet metal. I bet the real concours guys do!
All welded in.
Primered and ready to go. The dust in there is from my beginning to sand the hood. Unfortunately, I'm almost through the rust repair portion of the program, so I'll have to get to the thankless job of sanding as I prepare for paint. I have a couple of other spots that could use some new metal but they're in high profile areas, so I'm going to try my hand at bondo-ing first, then I may be back. Otherwise, I've had fun making sparks in this phase of the project!
February 29, 2003 This is an area I've avoided from the beginning. This is at the left quarter panel at the leading edge of the point the rear fender mounts. I've been concerned about this area as it will be visible, not under running boards or fenders, etc. so the welds will need to be ground invisible. I considered putting bondo here, but finally figured I'd rather weld in new metal and be careful. At this point, I've got the piece cut out.
Welded in. The hard part of this was making sure the break in the metal at the point the fender attaches matched.
Ground down, looking ok. Once the primer got on it, it looked good, but you can feel a low spot when your hand is rubbed across the area. So I guess the bondo is unavoidable, but now there is metal there, hopefully keeping the rust at bay.
I found this obstacle as I was giving the car a once over trying to finalize the welding. This is the hinge point at the bottom of the driver door, and what a bitch! Its got multiple and compound curves, the piece is small, and it's too tight to get a grinder or even a cutting wheel in there. I tried to enlist Tom's help, but he didn't bite, (he said I need to get a new body) so I guess I'll have to tackle this. Other than cutting and welding, I've considered silicone-ing the area and moving on. I'm not certain whether there is any structural need with this spot, but I'll do some figuring...check back later to see what happens.