Working on the rocker

I know it has been a while since my last post.  I have been working on the car when the weather is agreeable, and my time coincides.  Unfortunately it usually only translates to a couple of hours at a time.

So if I remember right, I was last working on the frame rail.  Next on the list was to get working on the rocker since it will need to be in better shape before I think about installing a torque box and floor pans.  I decided the best thing to do would be to remove the entire inner side and replace it.  With that out of the way it would make it easier to deal with the problems that I know was there and some I was sure to find.


I cut all the welds and took it back to the rear torque box and trimmed it there for the time being.  I will finish pulling it off and install the new piece after I remove the rear frame rail.  That's right, the other rail needs to go and be replaced.  It has actually broken in half just under the transition pan, and it seems to have just as much rot as the driver's side.  At least I was able to save one out of four rails, right?

Anyway, I removed the front piece of the rocker due to rot, and made some patches for some small places in the rocker itself.  Next on the list will be to get the front piece welded in and treat the inner part of the rocker for rust before I think of closing it up.

I have a few pics as this was over several weeks.  Definitely did not have enough time on the car for my liking.

Pulling it apart.  Yep that was the home to some four legged vermin.

Looks like he was bunking with a friend, this was just a little farther down.

Metal taken off and the homes demolished.

Removal of the front piece.  Ended up being easier to take it out in pieces.

Cowl side panel seems to be in pretty good shape.

Found some extra vent holes from rust.  Cut this out and fabbed up a patch.

View from the inside.

Tacked in place.  I actually just got the basic curve shape into the piece, welded the bottom to the car, and then slowly tacked it up the sides as I formed the patch into position.

After I ground it down, some more holes made themselves visible.

Cut them out and fixed it the same way.

Done!

More rot cut away.  I rebuilt this in two pieces.  In order to keep the flange straight, I clamped a piece of flat stock along the flange and clamped the patch to that.

Finished.  There is supposed to be notch there, I will cut it out later.

Fitting the front piece.  Ran out of time to weld it in.  Don't know when I will get to it as it has been snowing all week.

More frame rail repairs

This post is a long time in coming due to the fact that winter has now officially made its presence known.  I didn't want to get stuff written down until there was enough content to make a decent post.  Here we are then.

We left off with the rail wide open and looking kind of rusty inside.  I forgot to take pictures of it, but I treated inside the rail as far as I could with prep and etch, and painted it.  I then fit the new piece to the rail, marked it for trimming, cut it to size, drilled the holes for the welding, painted the back side, prepped the edges with weld through primer and set it into its permanent location with the welder.  I finished welding the radiator support to the rail as I hadn't finished it due to being uncertain as to the fate of this rail.  Ground everything down and then sprayed some zero rust over it for protection.

I had barely made it to this point and had to quit for the day because it was getting dark and cold.  The next day I woke up to everything covered in snow.  I now had to wait for the weather to improve before I could get back to the car.  It took longer than I had hoped as it was getting down into the negative temperatures at night.  Brrrr.

I finally had a couple of days warm enough to come out and work on the car.  It was a balmy 35 degrees or so.  I moved to the back of the rail and cut out the rusted metal.  I made a couple of flange pieces to support the metal patches and plug welded them in.  I then measured, trimmed and fit the pieces and proceeded to plug weld them to the flanges and butt weld the seam.  Ground that down and moved to the next issue on the rail.

I had rust scale splitting apart the seam between the pieces that needed to be addressed.  So I cut the spot welds holding the two pieces together, split them apart and cleaned the rust out.  I tried to get as much out as I could, but because I didn't want to cut it completely apart, it was a tight fit for me.  I managed to get it cleaned up to my satisfaction, treated and painted.  It really was not all that bad inside.  It should last quite a while more.  I then fit it back together and welded it back up.  Now I must wait until it warms up again, since more snow has made its way into my life.

Radiator support welded to the rail, and fitting the side piece.

Here we are from the side.

Everything welded together.  It was fun getting everything flush up front.  The replacement piece didn't have the bend that the rail did.  I had to apply the hammer pretty liberally.

All welded up.

Welds cleaned up.

Painted.

I had cut this out while waiting for the paint to dry on the back side of the front piece.  I made sure to take measurements to ensure it went back in without getting off kilter.

And the snow hits, guess I have to wait to finish the back side of the rail.  By the way, that is about 20 inches of snow.

Flange welded in on this side,

and the other side.

Patch welded in on this side.

Ground down.

Fitting on the other side.  If you notice, there is a gap between the two pieces.  The rail originally was this way.  The patch I ordered was all one piece and was meant to be welded in as such.  I was having issues getting it to fit properly and the floor extension didn't fit over the patch piece.  Turns out that the patch was a little to big for the replacement floor extension.  Good thing I fit it all together before welding it in.  That would have been much harder to fix than it was cutting it apart here.  This also has the benefit of being like the original rail here, and everything fits.

Welded in.

Ground down.

If we go back to this before pic, you can see the rail being split apart by the rust scale.

At this point I was separating the two pieces so that I could get enough space to brush out the loose rust, and then spray my rust treatment and paint inside.

All welded back together and ground back down.

Right frame rail, digging in.

Last post I am afraid I may have overreacted a little bit, I may not really need to do the whole rail.  I am trying to listen to that voice of reason that keeps telling me to save as much as possible and not spend unnecessary money.  That being said, I decided to start digging into the rail and truly finding out what needs to be replaced.  I started out by trimming back the toe board for more access to the rail, pulled off the floor extension, and proceeded to remove what must have been half an inch of nasty rubberized undercoating.

What I found actually meant that I didn't need to do the whole rail.  The plan at this point is to cut out the spots where it is obvious that there is rust problems and then patch it as best I can.  I am also planning on treating as much of the interior as I can with ospho and painting it with Zero Rust.  Hopefully this will be enough to make it last another 40+ years.  In we go!

I can see the rust poking out from the extension, how far does it really go?

Bulging seams, I'll have to cut some metal away and find out how much is still good.

The ugly, yep it goes all the way through.

Doesn't seem so bad on this side, we'll have to wait and see.

After cutting the toe board back a little further, I can now a get a good look inside.  It actually doesn't seem as bad as I originally thought.

Undercoating removed.

Extension off.  That is really ugly.

Yep, ugly here as well.

Not as bad, but I will still replace this side as well.

The rejects, may you rust in peace.

Cleaned off a ton of undercoating.  I think the previous owner was trying to see if it would bounce.  I am happy to see that there is original red oxide primer under all that crud.

Inner side cleaned up better.  It still had the factory undercoating in place.

Found a stamp on the outside of the rail.  I'm thinking that I should try and save it.

The remains of the undercoating.  What a mess.

On to the dessicated bumper mounting point.

Removed the outer piece, what a disaster.  The spot welds on the bottom were just about the only things not rusted through. 

Cleaned up and ready for several coats of phosphoric prep and etch.

More rust for the junk pile.