1964 Ford Fairlane - Round 3
SO the back end was finished (for now). Next step is to cut out the inner wheel houses and move them inward so I can get wider tires in the back. There's pics of the rear seat supports being removed. In addition, the trans tunnel and passenger floorboard have been replaced. We also tackled the rot hole in the rocker panel a the bottom of the A pillar on the passenger side.
What we didn't know was that was going to turn into a nightmare. What we thought would be a quick patch panel, around 3 inches by 8 inches max. When we cut out the rot, we found that the rocker had rotted away on the inside where it sits against the torque box. Well, I didn't want to start cutting our frame rails, and I couldn't find much info on how to handle this one. I think I found someone that had some videos on an old Mustang, and showed the torque box in pieces. So we drilled out all the spot welds of the top of the torque box, and removed it. This gave us the access needed to fix the inside of the rocker panel while not disturbing the bottom part of the torque box. Then we welded the torque box back together.
Sorry, no pics of the surgery, but I do have a pic showing the plug welds on the inside of the torque box. I was able to coat the inside of everything with rust preventative, so it should be good for another 75 years. Then the passenger floor went in. I still have a couple of pinholes I need to fill, then we're either going to do the front end, or the wheel houses, hopefully get this thing done by spring. The front end, we still have to do the front frame rails, the radiator support and the passenger inner fender.
Overall, the bodywork isn't too bad, there's a crease in the driver's rear quarter, and some rust around the wheel wells (we'll take care of that when we do the wheel houses). A couple spots on the fenders, and that should be it for the body. Then I can start putting it back together....
More pics here.