That was what I liked about your pictures. Your ego isn't tied to pretending that all your welds were perfect. The real world is far more interesting.

 

So, been a while, sorry.

Getting back into it:



Plating and paint on the suspension is holding up fairly well.


The dang sunroof panel is still trying to rust out.



Fixed!

(no, not really. This is just to keep the water under control.)

The car cover itself needed some patching as well to last just a bit longer.


Upholstery board id ruined. Vinyl is OK. I taped the board back together to serve as a template for some hardboard later.



I managed to drop the console plastic and cracked the snot out of it. Not happy about that.


Still getting some water in there


OK, what I wanted to tackle was the area around the passenger outboard seat mount. There was also some rust rearward of there, already cut out as well.

(Note that the seat mount is chewed a bit and is just sitting in place for the pic.)

 

Templating



Plus a little area up in the passenger outboard footwell still needed the second layer.


Patches made:





Glued in:

 

Grinding and fixing pinholes



Kinda started going to hell about there on the little patch under the seat mount. The surrounding sheet metal was a lot thinner due to rust than I thought, and it started blowing through everywhere. I tried to keep it under control using copper backers, but it ended up going south fast.




I finally decided to, uh, "test" the structural integrity of the floor with the pick end of the welding hammer and it was basically paper.




I'll need to circle back to that later.
The other patches were fine.


I also marked the seat mount area where I wanted to cut and replace with a piece from a parts car.

 

That was about 7 months ago. I was finally able to get out to my mom's where the parts car I was willing to sacrifice (no title, state-issued theft recovery VIN) was.
Prepping:



Cutting. Mostly cutting wheel on an angle grinder, with a little detail work with the mini hacksaw



Tah-dah!




Next up, putting that in.

 

OK, here we go.


Some interesting differences between the SA and an '83 FB. Note that the area under the seat mount is raised and the rib goes forward from there rather than rearward from the lateral rib as in the SA.



I can still make it work by splitting the difference and merging the ribs.


Marked to trim





Re-marked the floor


I had to deal with the effects of the previous welds sticking the layers together but got it done.

 

Little bit of rust on the bottom layer of the rocker, and I missed a spot weld.


Comparison


Cleaned up a bit, and a look inside the rocker. That got wire brushed and rust treated plus zinc paint.



Test fit. Looks like I did a fair job.



Ready to weld


Welded:

 

Here's that raised area from underneath. The bottom layer where the rocker overlaps will need to be massaged to meet up with it.


That just took a hammer and dolly like any other bodywork plus a little welding to handle the extra cuts



Patch welds ground and marking pinholes to fill


I really should have left the welds a bit rough. and sealed it all up with seam sealer. I ended up accidentally grinding too thin in one spot and blowing through attempting to fix it.



Thankfully, one of the trimmed bits has the contours I need to fix that, which I will do later when I'm not disgusted with myself.


In the meantime, zinc paint to keep it from rusting.

 

Side note: noticed this on the rocker at the rear of the door opening while crawling around underneath.

Just sort of ignoring that one for now.

And this little bubble at the rear wheel


Just straight up welded that one:



More when I have time!