Thread: '56 hit by a deer this morning...

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I cannot comment 'cause I'm completely out of my element in this. I'd guess I would have to buy the pieces, parts that were available - be it repro or original. And then meld the 2 together. But you already know that part. And you're so much better at this than myself.

I'll have a go at doing this type of work at my uncles 48 F-1 in the near future. So by you sharing the experiences you're helping more than you know. As always, thanks for taking us along for the ride! 8-)

Mark, this is why I suggested full rockers when you were patching that one end. Beneath this A pillar foot it will have rust also into the rockers. Most of this was likely from condensation inside the roof that travelled downward to the low area. Now I’d suggest also ice picking the dog leg in the A pillar at the back corner of the windshield to see if there is any rust there. The condensation travelled through there to get to the bottom, it’s bound to have trapped some there along the way. Especially look on the bottom side of the dogleg.

Yea, the passenger side was usable but the drivers side is shot. I just ordered a complete outer for that.
I got all of the junk cleaned out of the rocker and footwell yesterday. I cut out the footwell and the front floor brace came with it. It was not attached to the rocker at all. Once the body mount bolt was out the whole piece was free.

I separated the brace from what was left of the floor and cleaned it up. Luckily it is in real good shape and reusable!

After some scraping, a little grinding and some wire wheel time we have a clean brave. I still need to spend some time on the inside de-rusting.

The outside looks pretty good as is. There are no thin spots so this is good to go.

Looking at the rocker after I got the brace out of the way... You can see the upper rocker is very cratered and thin. The floor flange is all but gone and the A pillar reinforcement is pretty much non-existent.

After I got all of the rot removed. The outer had been replaced at some point, with a cap. The old outer is still there and it all needs to come out.

I worked through a bunch "fixing it" scenarios in my head and the best one was to simply replace the entire rocker like Roger has been saying. This side I can justify doing that as the entire top of the rocker has issues.
The new piece won't be here until Friday but I have plenty to do in building patch panels for the lower pillar, the inside rocker reinforcement and a section of floor I removed as it was all holey and thin.
Here are a few pics as I was getting things gutted...

Looking back, down the length of the rocker. You can see some warping in the top of the rocker as it compares to the bottom of the door. There is some stuff going on there that I want to fix. I will try to get pics of it tonight.

Here is a shot of the section of toe board I removed.

I'll get busy fabbing the patch for this and the inner rocker/A pillar reinforcement tonight.

Look at my avitar:

That is exactly what I have got to work with!

But without the shiny exterior.

Thanks for the update and pictures.. but..... damn that's depressing! LOL.. Sounds like you have a plan in place and will be moving forward. Can't wait to see the next update. 8-)

A little depressing yes, but it's all repairable...

Got home from work and beelined it straight out to the shop. Had a plan and stuck to it. Made a quick template for the floor patch out of card stock and set up the bead roller to turn the flange.
Didn't take any pics until the template was done and I had started on the patch itself.


Running the piece thru the tipping dies. This is 16ga so I could only tip it so far and the nylon roller didn't like the pressure.



I ended up finishing the bend on my metal bench. I also had to stretch the flanged edge a bit to bring the panel back to flat.

With the flange mostly done and the piece clecoed in.

Looking back at the patch from the front tire... I outlined the hole in the floor because I will trim the patch a 1/2" oversize and flange the edges to drop it flush with the toe board on the out side.

I will need to do some tweaking on the flange but I can wait and do that after the piece is welded in.
I also started developing the inner A pillar reinforcement patch.

This welds between the outer and inner rockers. I won't do much with this other then get an oversize piece trimmed out.

I can't fit it to the car until the outer is replaced and lower A pillar rebuilt.
Thanks for watching!
Mark

If that car was a uni-body like they are today, it would have broke in half! That car is going to be much more solid to drive when you are finished with it!

Thanks Dave! I hope it will be better, I know I will feel better knowing what it was... I will be adding sound and temperature insulation before carpet so I know THAT will be an improvement.

I spent some time in the shop the other day just looking and planning. With the new outer rocker I needed to figure out how I was going to replace it without disturbing the A pillar and, especially, the door alignment. I figured the best thing to do is to get the floor installed. At least get it to the point that it can be screwed in solid. The last couple of nights were spent removing the old floor and getting the inner rocker rot cleaned out.


Cleaning the rot of the rocker. There was not a lot of "finesse" used when these repairs were done... This would be embarrassing if I had done it...

The long center floor brace was attached to nothing. The metal that was in here was not welded to the brace...

This is "some" of the junk I have removed from the rocker. I still have to clean out the back, at the rear floor brace and wheel well but I ran out of steam tonight...

The new rocker came in today and it looks great! This will work much better then trying to patch and straighten that 64 year metal. Hopefully I can splice it in where that rats nest pictured above is at.


Next on the list is to finish cleaning out the rocker and getting the wire channel flange cleaned up to except the new floor.
Thanks for looking!
Mark

Nice work as always Mark! Friend of mine has a sign in his office that seems appropriate for rust repair on old cars, "When you're up to your ass in alligators it's hard to remember you came here to drain the swamp!" All of this type of work gets to be so labor intensive, you've really got be dedicated to a project to take the time to do it right, as you obviously are!

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Nice work as always Mark! Friend of mine has a sign in his office that seems appropriate for rust repair on old cars, "When you're up to your ass in alligators it's hard to remember you came here to drain the swamp!" All of this type of work gets to be so labor intensive, you've really got be dedicated to a project to take the time to do it right, as you obviously are!

I have to agree with Dave. keep up the great work.

Originally Posted by Teamchevy

Lots of good work done there Mark! :tu

Dave
:bowtieb:

Thanks a BUNCH guys! I am getting a little tired but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The hard work is nearly done...

Shoveled snow this morning! It was pretty wet and heavy. Got done about noon so, after lunch, I headed out to the shop.
I got the rest of the inner rocker junk cut out along with what was left of the rear floor brace. Three spot welds were all that were holding all of that in.

I also cut off all of the floor flange that was left after I cut out the floor. The inner wall flange and back half of the floor is in really good shape. I have a bit of rust to fix in the wheel well but it's nothing compared to what I did on the passenger side...

I ran a flap disc around the floor opening to clean up where the new floor will weld in and ground down what was left of the spot welds on the middle floor brace.

Then I rolled the plasma cutter outside and trimmed the drivers floor so it will drop in place. It was spitting snow and sleet while I was doing this.


The pieces I won't be using.

Dropped the floor in, did some trimming to fit it around the seat pedestal, and got it close.



I got that done and called it a day. I was cold and I needed a shower to knock off all of the grit and dust I made when cleaning up the old metal...
I have some work to do to get the front of the floor snuggled down but I'll work on that tomorrow... Then I can start fitting the inner rocker and getting this stuff locked down for the outer replacement... I need to have this all locked in tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Thanks for watching!
Mark

Looks like it lines up nice!

The best of luck to you

Good Luck Mark!