#14 More welding!

With the back end of the car in good shape with new quarter panels, new trunk floor, and rejuvenated deck lid, it was time to focus on the forward end again.  But this time it wasn't the sheet metal that needed attention.


In the picture below you are looking at the rusted out end of what is the frame on a uni-body car.  I suspect this car was submerged in flowing water at some point in it's history.  I say this because the box section seen here was full of dried mud, a LOT of it.  The mud held moisture every time the car was driven on wet roads.  This caused the rusted out hole you see.

Here you can see some of the mud still up inside the frame.  You can also see another rusted out hole on the right side.



I used a long piece of metal to get the mud out, then blew it out with high pressure air after running a stiff brush inside.  

This is the amount of dirt that came out of the section of rusted out frame.

The drivers side was not much better.  The hole wasn't as large, but the area was just as rusted.  The area above it was also rusted.  You can just barely see it in the photo.  It looks like a vertical crack to the right of the large rusted area.

This is the view from inside the car.  This is the drivers left kick panel area, just left of the brake pedal.  The dimmer switch is near the upper right corner.  You can see the small hole rusted out near the center of the picture just to the right of the nice round one.  I should have spotted this earlier when I was patching the larger areas, but it was covered with a tar like undercoating.  I poked through the floorboard from underneath while exploring the rusted frame.  The new patch panel is just below and to the right of where it will be welded in.



The picture below shows the left side of the cowl.  This is what the doors bolt to, the windshield is mounted on, and the forward end of the floorboard is welded to.  It is the outer edge of the forward end of the floorboard that is rusted.  But it is rusted between the inner and outer panels of the cowl.  In the picture above, everything to the left of the dimmer switch is the inner cowl panel.  The view below is the outer cowl panel.  Since the rust is in the floorboard between the panels, I had to open up the outer panel.  If you look closely, you can see a horizontal line going across the panel at the midpoint.  It then goes downward along the forward edge, and angles back.  This is where I cut the panel to open it up for access to the rust.

Here it is all opened up.  You can see the debris at the bottom of the opening and the rust along the slanted forward edge.  That is the dimmer switch you see sticking up in the large oval opening.  Just below the oval you can see another small hole rusted through.

I started out by making a template of the small rusted area below the large oval opening.  Here you see the cardboard pattern and the same piece cut out of metal from the old left quarter panel.

Here is the patch panel I made for the larger rusted area along the front edge.  After this was taken I ended up drilling some holes to do rosette welds through.

Here it is welded in place.  The edge bent upward along the outer edge will be welded to the inside of the outer cowl panel after I get it all closed up.  This will have to be done through the large oval opening from the inside.  You can also see the four rosette welds where I attached it to the old floorboard.

Another view.  In this one you can see the small patch panel on the inner cowl panel near the bottom.  The large oval opening is where a vent louver goes.  You can see three of the four holes where the screws go in to hold it in place.  Older cars that did not have air conditioning came with these louvers where you could pull a knob and air would be taken in through the slots in the top of the cowl just below the windshield.  They let in a lot of air. But anything small enough to go through the slots in the top of the cowl found their way down to the bottom of this area.   

Here is the view of the inside after welding the little patch panel into the corner.  No need to grind the welds down because the floorboards will have a thick layer of jute with carpet over it.  But first it will get a liberal application of flexible seam sealer along all the welds and any of the seams where it is missing.

Below is a picture of the left side of the cowl where I had it opened up.  The welds have been covered with seam sealer to fill the pin holes.  I will spray some color over the whole thing before I put the fender back on.  If you look just to the left of the top of the colored area, you can see a small patch panel I welded in to repair a rusted area where the hood hinge mounts. 

For the holes in the frame I knew the challenge was going to be making the patch panels.

Here I am transferring a paper cutout of the panel for one side onto a sheet of plate steel.

After transferring the outline of the panel onto the steel I cut it out and formed it over a round piece of wood that was just the right size.

But in addition to the curve seen in this picture, I needed to put a 90 degree bend upward along the pencil line you see in this picture.  This is what is called a compound curve and is very difficult to do without the proper machinery, which I don't have.










Remember earlier when I said one of the things you needed to do bodywork was a good air compressor.  Well while I was grinding on the rusted area beneath the car a loud sound came out of my air compressor.  When I took it apart this is what I found inside.  The part on the left is supposed to look like the  one on the right.  So until I can find a new connecting rod there is not a lot I can do.

After installing a new connecting rod in the compressor I was able to air chisle out the old rusted pieces of the frame and weld in the patch parts I had fabricated.  I was trying to make up for the lost time while the compressor was down and forgot to take pictures of the patch panel for the drivers side.   But the pictures below show what they looked like after welding them in.

This is the passenger's side.  You can see where I had to heat it up with the torch to create the compound curves.
















Below is the driver's side, with the same heat marks from the torch.  I will go over both sides with a wire wheel on a drill, then a light coat of self etching primer.  Once that dries, I will seal up the cracks and crevices with seam sealer and they will be ready to paint.

Here is a view after spraying it with a coat of paint.

And a view of the left side.  The area where the undercoating has been removed will be recovered with undercoating later.













To go to next page, click here.