71 'Cuda restoration

[Tunis]

Excellent, thanks Cody! That is exactly where it is touching slightly, at the lowest spot in the rear foot wells.

[Tunis]

Update time! I haven't been sitting idle, although I lost most of my steam when I realized I wouldn't have the car ready for paint this summer. Anyway, let's continue with the restoration of this awesome automobile!

I decided to replace the rear foot wells at the same time as I replaced the front floor as the metal was really thin and fatigued in several places.

Blurry photo, but it was the only one I had.



I carefully measured where the console brackets and the four speed hump was located relative to the firewall, the sides and the rear. Then carefully removed the four speed hump.


Someone had covered the holes in the floor which can be seen in the photo above.

Removed the floor pan and the seat track brackets (are they called that?)



Anyway, once the floor was removed, I blasted the inside of the frame and coated it with rust protective primer.









Time to tackle the new floor pan. Nothing to it, transfer the "seat track brackets" (which were blasted and primed) and then drill a million holes and apply weld primer 



Then prepare the frame that was previously coated with primer. Grind of the primer where the welds go and then add weld primer instead.





Next up was the four speed hump. It is OK except for a spot where it was rotted through.

[Cuda Cody]

    

[Tunis]

Skipped a bit ahead with the hump..

I first welded the floor pan in place. Used some wood to be able to clamp it down thoroughly in some places. Smells better with burned wood than weld fumes



Patched the four speed hump then primed it, don't have and photos of that though. When the floor pan was welded in place, the four speed hump was welded down.





After that I welded the cable cover back.



Next moving under the car.

The rear shock mounting bar (what's this called?) had some damage.



Patched and welded in place



Time to tackle the front of the car!

I wanted to save both inner fenders although they both had a lot of rot located around the shock tower, hinge location and the flange where the fenders bolt.



Hinge mounting bracket



Blasted, patched and fixed.



Cut out the damaged area in the fender.



Patched the inner fender and primed all parts.



Same with the other inner fender.





Then patched the inner fender.



Both fenders blasted and primed and weld primed, ready to be installed again. Regret removing them, but I didn't know better back then.



Prepped the front end and radiator support.



In the end I didn't like all the pitting around and under the battery tray on the left inner fender, so I used the repro inner fender.

[Roadman]

    Awesome work.   

[Tunis]

Time to get the car onto the rotisserie 





Up in the air.



The garage is just big enough to house the rotisserie..



Underside of the car.





First remove the undercoating. My wife helped some because she really liked how it flew of with the needle hammer



After the undercoating was removed, it was time to blast it.







Blasted and prepped for torque box installation.



Time to build some subframe connectors

I started with rectangular steel tubing 50x50x2 mm and then added some sheet metal to that.



Finished



Ran into a problem with the repro kick panel. The door hinge bolt wore out the threads in no time. Luckily I saved to old one and cleaned it up and replaced the new one. The new must have been made of a softer steel.



Back to the underside of the car. Subframe connectors welded in place.



Then epoxy primer applied.





This was the work done from August until now. This last weekend it was time for some E5 after about 20 hours of sanding the epoxy.. Really boring work.





That's it! Finally up to speed again on my progress. Time for some much needed rest.

[soundcontrol]

Looking great, nice work! At least you got to rustproof the overlaps by removing the inner fenders.

[Tunis]

Thanks guys!

[Tunis]

@soundcontrol Thank you! That is very true and judging by how the car looked, it is much needed..

[MikeMikeMike]

Nice progress! 

[anlauto]

I hate the fact you destroyed a rare original car by adding frame connectors, but otherwise....nice work

[Tunis]

I know Alan... sorry for that. I know what this car is to you.. I just think it makes it much stronger and less likely to get twisted from acceleration. I could most likely reverse the 'damage' with a grinder since I didn't fully weld it to the floor.

[Shane Kelley]

That's some nice quality work your doing.  Looks great!

[Tunis]

Thanks Alan btw! And thank you Shane! Means a lot coming you two!

[MikeMikeMike]

I thought of you @anlauto the second I saw the frame connector picture based on our previous discussion on them. You really do hate those things.

Like I've said before, they can be cut off, ground down and 'that will buff right out' should market resale demand it     

My only regret with using this type is it makes installing the lines and e-brake cables more difficult which I have had to contend with.

Looks like he's doing some great sheet metal work though!