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Northstar Camaro Club Forum » Technical » Body/Paint » Basket case rebuild
The car I'm working on has extensive rust damage. I started the long process of panel replacement this week. Here are pics of what I started with.
Right body mount
Floor above the mount and kick panel
Hidden rot
Removed cowl to frame mount
Donor cut-off
Removed damaged pillar and kick panel
Pillar ready for install
Nice, solid material to work with now
Welded in
Test fit of cowl mount
Nice work! You sir, are a magician.
Thanks for sharing.
looks like your getting some good use out of you welder
Looks like that cars keeping you busy, and looks like good work.
Whats the car? SS ? RS ? 327 ? race or nice driver.
Fill me in on your plans for this one.
Non- Camaro; it's a 67 GTO. It's practice for my 67 Camaro and 70 Chevelle.
Left kick panel, same as the right.
Door braces I fabricated.
Ready to roll the old frame out the back.
Old frame pieced together....
Cut up for scrap.
Ready to go on the rotisserie.
Finished modifying the other end of the roto today and got the body on it. It took a while to find the balance but I have an airborne car!!!
Upside down. 43 years of dirt, broken glass, and mouse crap came falling out....
I started cutting out the right rocker panel.
This is waiting to go in...
Got back to work on the GTO today. I finished fitting the right outer rocker panel and installed it.
With the right side sturdy again, I moved to the left. I cut out a piece of the floor and inner rocker for access. The kick panel is supposed to come all the way to the bottom of the rocker panel too and is completely rusted away.
Here I've used the plasma cutter to slice off the inner cowl/ kick panel to get at the outer rocker.
And here the outer rocker is completely removed. Next I will cut off the lower fender mount also as it's too rusty to weld the new rocker to.
That would be interesting for everyone but I doubt many could attend on a week day. I will have the body upside down and lower the floor onto the rockers with the forklift. That should happen around Wednesday next week. After the floor is tacked, I need to start on the frame and get that painted and built up as a roller to set the body on to check alignment and mounting hole locations. I had the 12 bolt Chevelle axle I got for it sand blasted on Wednesday and painted it yesterday.
Those pictures are amazing. Real clear and sharp. Nice job!
Had my sutures removed yesterday and did things with my son while he was home from school. Got back in the shop today. I removed the rest of the left rocker panel. It was worse than the right side so I removed all of it.
Lots of clean-up and grinding to do before final install but it looks like it will fit nicely.
I got the left rocker installed Wednesday. What a PITA that was. I had to turn the car upside down to get it to line up and measure out right. Also had to modify the rocker as it didn't have an important offset inside the kick panel. Then I drilled 53 holes for plug welds, cleaned all the paint off the weld surfaces and sprayed with copper weld thru primer. Finally, after 6 hours, I got it welded in.
Thursday, I forgot the camera but spent all day cutting down the donor cowl/kick panel for the left side. Lots of measuring and visualizing, then gradually cutting it down so I don't screw up. I also cut off the lower fender mount on the cowl as it was too rusty and made a one piece patch from the donor.
Today I did the final fitting. I then marked the location of the internal braces and pierced holes for plug welds with the plasma.
All welded in.
On to new territory... I rough cut the floor out with the sawzall.
Then I used the plasma to trim around the brackets and wheel wells.
I ground off the old floor from the weld lip.
Then I set the new floor in place for a test fit Lots of work left before it will be installed but it sure fills up the hole in a hurry.
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