So with both the bike and the Van back on the road, my thoughts returned to the work to be done on the passenger side of the Monte Carlo. After some prelimary hacking and slashing this is part of what I dug out of the A pillar.
And more hit the floor after that.
The wheel on the left is what a 3" cut off wheel for a muffler cut off tool looks like when new; The stubs on the right are what is left after doing battle with the damaged rocker, or more precisely what is left of both it and the front pocket behind the quarter panel.
Speaking of damage and havoc.........................
A quicl look at the lower section of the A Pillar. There is still some serious cutting and triming left to do here as it has to be stripped all the way down to the backing panel before I can start the repairs.
Surprise! For values of bad I have seen worse but this will take some serious rehabilitation just to get it to where I can start test fitting the inner and outer rocker panels as well as the new patch panel that will hide it all.
The B pillar got its fair share of attention too. The way GM built these cars was to stamp out lots of little pieces and then plug or fuse weld them together in ever increasing sizes until a car rolled out the exit. Great for economizing on production equipment but a stone B**** to dissect when trying to get all the way to the bottom to exorcise the rust demons. The B pillar is still waiting on some more work as I have to extract the remainder of the outer rocker panel and to do that I have to locate the plug welds and drill them, carefully.
When I cut away the destroyed sections of the outer rocker panel, I found that the inner rocker panel had been left to keep on rotting and a flat strip of sheet metal jacked into place just to hold things together. In this picture you can see that all of the original inner rocker panel has been cut away except for the upper two inches. Structurally this section is both intact and rust free so it will make a great attachment point for a new inner panel that I already have waiting. Bot this strip and the frame outer wall will get several visits from the air motor with a wire wheel mounted in it to strip away the calculus of multiple paint jobs and undecoating and general scuzz and corruption. It's a "while I'm in there" opportunity to renovate a location that is otherwise extremely hard to access.
Meet the new inner rocker panel, all 5.5 feet of it. When installed it stretches all the way from the A Pillar as far as the inner rear fender well. Although not very visible, if you look close you can see that it has already been punched for the plug welds.
By this. Air punch. 3/16s hole size. It's bigger brother is 5/16ths. It's back in the tote box. Went small and close together to minimize heat; a smaller hole means less work with the Mig gun to make the connection and the work gets done faster.
At this point I guess it would be polite to introduce my personal engines of mass desctuction................
From left to right you see my micro belt sander, inline motor, muffler cutoff tool, and saw. These are all air tools that I have accumulated over time due to need or availability. Were I doing this job as little as 15 years ago, I would probably have given it a hard pass. In fact I actually did. Not only because at that point my shop/garage/den of iniquity did not exist, but also because I didn't have the compressor capability that I do now. Compressor? D-V three lung. 230 Volts, has its own breaker in the service box. Drove both the electrician and the electrical inspector nuts trying to wire it. That was fun simply because all I had to do was stand there and reset the breaker everytime they tried something and the system said, electrically speaking, "uh-uh".
Not sure where I got this from but I did have it to help me handle the driver's side door so it has been a while. The keen eyed have recognized it as a cradle for lifting and aligning doors; works great for the G-bodies whose doors are about five feet long and weigh somewhere close to 50-75 pounds or more fully loaded.
And its next victim, my passenger's door. Right now it is lying on my bike lift. The lift has rubber pads so the side impact crash box is sitting across them and it is pretty well balanced. Makes a good adhoc work bench for parts that will be used for the build. What you see is the outer rocker panel,with the replacement panel for the quarter panel sitting more or less on top of it, and it too is punched for spot welds, both top and bottom. Not sure how long it has been waiting to be installed. High probability that it, like the door skins, predates Covid. Yeah, there is a brand new door skin awaiting installation; right now still in its box and waiting peacefully for its turn.
Which brings me both to the midpoint of my tale and to the same old problem as most of us, we work to accumulate the funds to play with our toys but when we work we have no time to take care of them and when we don't, there is no money.... "HUNNY, We need new..............(insert latest item of feminine selfish ego-centric interest that requires immediate attention and huge cash transfusion)......................................... Not my personal problem but there are others just as time and money consuming to which regular attention must be paid.
Anyway, for me this is progress. The balance of this week I am back in the shift rotation and having fun? out in the streets.
Nick
