'71 R/T, fixing a parts car

[Flatdad]

The bad bits removed, & the intended patch...

[Flatdad]

A little easier to see...

[daaboots]

Great work man! Looks as rusty as mine, maybe even a tad worse!

[YellowThumper]

Wow. Read thru most of thread. Huge undertaking there. Congrats on the progress. Will follow now for the finish.

[Flatdad]

Worked on the car from about 11pm til almost 2am last night. Between tonight & a similar late night thrash last week, I got the rocker patch tweaked, fitted, & welded in. I didn't get a picture last night because I was tired & frankly kind of embarrassed of how the repair looked. Oh well, I'll post a pic later of my hack-jobbery anyway. They can't all be pretty repairs... at least its progress. On the bright side, its 2020 & I'm still motivated to get this car running!

Here's an old "before" picture of the rocker along with the next part of the project getting tackled... the FLOORS!

[Flatdad]

OOOH yeah, look at that firewall! That rust was hiding under the last bits of carpet left in the car. Bummer I was thinking the firewall was in decent shape, but its toast.

I've removed the passenger floor now & test fitted the new floor section, but forgot to take a pick like a dummy! The front frame under the rusty passenger floor is rock solid! 

...with the exception of the torque box (i think its called a torque box) but it looks like an easy patch.

Since the drivetrain isn't coming out of the car for a while, I won't plan on patching the firewall or trans tunnel permanently until that happens. For a quick band-aid, I'll probably just rivet some steel over those holes until the engine someday gets pulled.

As I said back on Nov 27th, this is supposed to be a low budget rebuild, & I'm sticking to it. No more new metal is to be bought.

[Flatdad]

...and here is a pic of the floor patch just laying in place before work began. Sherman piece, it actually fits pretty darn good.

[Flatdad]

Panel marked, drilled, weld through primed...

[Flatdad]

The original under-seat supports welded on the bottom of the panel, & I brush painted the underside black out of a can I had sitting around.

The frame rails and surrounding areas were prepped and weld-thru primed, I also had to patch those outer seat brackets on the top side.

I didn't grab a pic, but I painted the insides & outsides of the front frame rails with heavy duty "chassis black" to curb any future rot.

The torque box needs fixed, but I'll probably just 'hack-job' patch it later.

The passenger floor is ready to weld in, just gotta get it done.

[Flatdad]

Over the weekend I finished spot welding in the passenger floor pan, and fitted up the rear passenger footwell/pan. The Goodmark pan needed a little grinding on the seat belt mount to sit flush to the rocker, nothing the good old angle grinder couldn't handle. I sunk it in place with self-tapping screws and made my spot weld hole marks. I got bored with the passenger floor(s) and worked on the driver's side yesternight. I ripped and ground all spot welds from the seat mounting brackets & sure enough they'll need some work too. Should go faster since I've done it once already though.

Getting this car going by summertime is looking more & more realistic every time I work on it, which is exciting!

[Flatdad]

I popped more spot welds loose on the driver's floor last night. My implements of destruction were tin snips, a tire iron to pry with, and shear force of will. I did try grinding a few spot welds, but hated the noise and sparks. Ripping the spot welds apart with the tire iron was just as fast, maybe even faster. I got about halfway through when my cousin invited me over for nachos, beverages, and a movie. Pretty hard to turn that down, lol.

A while back, I picked up a cheap Dana 60 that had been narrowed to E-body width, with spring perches welded on as well. Since it wasn't originally for a car, there is no provision to add a pinion snubber, has anyone come up with a good way to add one?

[Flatdad]

Back on Sunday night I started to feel a bit iffy, which morphed into being sick most of the week. I stayed away from people, bundled up and worked on the car as best I could over the course of the week.

I got the driver's floor all the way out, hit any weld slivers left behind with the grinder, wire wheeled the loose rust, and test fitted the new driver's floor. I test fitted the remaining floor pieces too & it looked great. I noticed some frame rot at the rear of the driver's rail. I decided a small patch would take care of it as the rest of the rail was solid otherwise.

Last night, I loaded up a good bit of parts for the Indy Swap meet. I'll be selling extra '71 Challenger parts, most of it one-year-only stuff.

[Flatdad]

My viscous fan got lost or stolen from me. There's no other place it should be except the garage, but it isn't there. I live out in the sticks & nobody goes in the garage except other family members to borrow tools. It really took the wind out of my sails for working on the project, but I finally forced myself to work on the car last night.

I patched the rear seat mount that welds to the rocker & welded the inner seat brackets to the bottom of the new floor pan. I also welded a brace onto the torque box up front. The new floor pan has been trimmed and fitted, I traced all the areas where it contacted the frame & rockers, marked it off for spot welds, & drilled all the holes. Next, is painting the panel bottom & painting the frame rails before welding in the new floor.

[Flatdad]

I'm terrible

I have a perfectly capable camera & I didn't take pics. While stuck at home over the weekend, bored out of my mind, I kicked the radio on and worked on the car some more.

On Friday night, I painted the bottom of the new driver's floor pan & painted the exposed frame rails on that side too. When the paint had dried on the rails I went back with a grinder & bared the metal wherever a spot weld was to be made.

On Saturday, I set the floor in place one last time & started sinking it down with self-tapping sheetmetal screws so it would be tight to the rails. If it still wasn't tight to the rails, I'd hit it with a hammer. If there was still a small gap, then I leaned on it hard with a hammer handle while tacking it in place. Alternating every other spot weld hole, I welded up about 40 spot welds (out of 56 I think) before calling it quits. I broke the rules, headed to my cousin's place & enjoyed beverages until 5:30am.

I got up Sunday morning a few hours later and wandered back into the garage. I welded most of the remaining spot welds and moved onto fitting up the rear footwells. They almost fit but not quite. I was fresh out of patience so I beat the b'jesus out of them with a hammer until they fit where they were supposed to. I sunk them in place with the rest of my self tapping screws before running out ambition.

The floors are really close to being done!

I feel like I owe you guys a picture, so here is one of my favorite pictures of a '71 in action:

[Flatdad]

Found some pictures of the driver's side, after tearing out most of the floor. Oooh yeah, look at that rocker rot! I'll be dealing with that after the floors are "done".

Thank goodness I'm not making it pretty, just making it safe enough to drive.