Monday, March 31, 2014

31.5 hours in and no end in sight.

I've been a bit delinquent in posting, but I've been tearing into Hanky bit by bit, a few hours here and there. By now the inner and outer quarters are off. As is the b pillar most of of the driver's side floor. 

Before I took it all apart, I made up some cross supports so that I could line things up before I cut them out and get them back into place when I put it back together. You saw them a few posts ago. 

I'm just over 30 hours into cutting. I could have done it faster with bigger blocks of time and better tools, but so be it. I think I'm getting down to usable metal. A sane person would bag it and get a new tub. But like I've said before, I have more sheet metal and welding wire than I do sense. Plus, I figure if I can get this thing back together, I can do just about anything. Plus I've had some neat ideas along the way. Perhaps I'll share those later too. 

I'm going to start from the front and work my way to the back. I'll probably leave the floor out until I get the b pillar and center mount put back in, then do the end cap and a piece of the rear floor before putting the quarters back on. 

As you might surmise from prior pics, or if you've seen Hanky in person, there wasn't much left of the mid mount. Or anything else for that matter. If so, you were right. Not much left of the floor either. Or the...  Well here, have a look. 







I've gone through a few cutting wheels. But I'm starting to fit in new panels. I'm scrapping a shop cabinet and an old waging machine for sheet metal. If I cut it right, I can get the bends already done. I was even able to get the lip for the floor where the door weather strip attaches. The first patches fit pretty well. I had to cut out a section of the vertical seam under the floor and some of the middle floor panel, so I cut two separate pieces to fit and retain the seam. 


Tonight I cut and chiseled off the remnants of the inner and outer quarters from the b pillar. The spot welds on the inner came off easily with a chisel, but I had to cut and grind the outers. No biggee, less than half an hour. 


Most of the chalky stuff is left over from the acid bath it got. I'll hit it with the sand blaster to clean it up before I weld the bottom back together. 

Next up is test fitting the mid mount repair panel.