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March 4, 2004
3.0 hours

Floor Repair Part 5

I'm really happy with tonight's repair--it's my best yet. I spent about a half hour just analyzing the area trying to figure out which step should come next. Finally, I decided that the outer skin should be finished before the inside panels. Then I cut out some of the rusted areas I found the other day after sandblasting. I took a careful look at the way this panel was shaped on the driver's side and realized that the floor forms another lap joint running parallel to the rockers. The outer skin forms the outside of the door hinge post, then curls under the floor to meet the floorboards at a lap joint. The patch I decided to make tonight would repair the door hinge post and recreate the curved area leading to the floor.

I cut out some additional rust before starting to patch the area.

Once everything was cut out, I used a piece of poster board to create a template by placing the board behind the cutout area and tracing the shape. Then I cut out the shape and transferred it to some 16-gauge sheet metal. I used my new nibbler to cut it out.

Poster board template transfers shape to sheetmetal.

I neglected to take any pictures of my patch panel and how I secured it to the opening with those neat little clamps from Eastwood, sorry about that. It took some trimming and grinding to get a decent fit, plus some hammering and shaping to get it to follow the curves properly. The hardest part was getting the corner of the door hinge post the right shape and radius. You can see in the photo below that it follows a slight curve as it goes up, which was very hard to match. But with some patience, I managed to get it to fit. Once I was satisfied with the fit, I tacked it in place, then finish welded it around the perimeter.

Finished patch looks pretty good after grinding. Arrow shows slight
curve of patched area, which was very hard to dupliate.

Compare this photo to the one at the top of this page and you can
see how the patch fits and completes the curved area just above
the body mount. Some finish grinding will make this repair invisible.

My next step will probably be to cut out the remaining rusty area from the panel edge (see the area marked with magic-marker in the picture above), and fabricate one more panel to form the corner of the lower cowl. Then I'll make a panel to finish the main floor area, and then finally seal up the inside of the door pillar with one last patch. I'm hoping to get all that done this weekend because I'm going to another trade show in L.A. next week and I'll be gone from Tuesday to Sunday. Once this side of the floor is patched, I can move to the other side and start all over again.

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E-mail me at toolman8@sbcglobal.net

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Last modified on 02/06/2005

Thanks, Fidget!