Making the biggest patch panel. Is it possible

[shark3226]

Hello All Im doing a 87 T type restoration/race car. I have now made money from this car parting it out lol I just want the frame and Shell anywayz. Floor is bad. Real bad.

As you can see Ive cut Majority of it out. outer rockers shot inner rockers rough. Etc. Heres my Idea I bought a cutlass shell

Lopped the floor off at the bottom of the A and B Pillars all the way up into the trunk area

Im cleaning it up for Primer now. Now Obviously I would trim the rest of the Firewall off of the floor here by taking spot welds out here

And here
At the back seat seat back

I have rust on the body at the bottom of the A pillar and my Front of rear wheel oppening. So I have patch panels for A pillar and B pillar and the patch panels for the Front of rear wheels.

Now for the fatty question. Well Two big ones. Im going to try to attempt to remove the bottoms of the pillars off the inner rocker/ floor extensions. Off the donor floor. May or MAY NOT! remove the outer rocker from the donor floor. And do the same to the body except leave enough material to work the patch panels for the pillars to be able to fit of course.

I think the inner rocker comes all the way up and spot welds to the back of the B pillar here

And somehow attatches to the A pillar here i would have to look again.
I WONDER?!?! can I put the whole floor and rockers in from the bottom. Next problem is. And you can see my home made body cart the body is sitting on the rocker pinch welds. Well I have a 2 Post lift. See those braces I taked into the body. Think I could fully weld them up strong and lift the body upper by those bars with my 2 post. Then id be able to get the whole floor and rockers out and the new floor in. Has this ever been done?

 

[Hurricane77]

I've lifted my shell with a bar through front holes where the door wiring passes through. I've also marked in red where the body mount box welds to the A-pillar area. You can see one section that fold down on top of the inner sill.

You can see a bit better what I'm talking about here.

For the B-pillar, that's just a turned down flange for the floor. But the brace underneath where the body mounts are just spot welded to some raised pads on the inner rocker

I've got some pictures in my build thread here:

CUTLASS - '87 Cutlass Salon

So I'm new here and have already found this to be a very good source of info. I used to have a 1986 Cutlass Supreme Brougham, White on Olive Green (including the Landau top), way back when I was in university (~20 years ago). It was my first 'real' car. I think I paid $2500 CAD for it back in...

gbodyforum.com

And RabbitHole has a whole bunch of details of his floor repair in his "Rustier Than I Thought" build thread

 

[shark3226]

Thats a Great Idea to Lift the vehicle. Where did you put the Rear arms?

 

[Hurricane77]

Lol, yeah, minor oversight. Maybe not the best spot. But the body is extremely light when it's completely stripped and it hasn't appeared to have distorted the sheet metal

 

[oldsofb]

Anything can be done with a little bit of skill and a lot of determination. You could use the frame as a jig of sorts. Bolt the donor floor to the frame (with new body bushings) and lower and raise the body on to it until it all fits together. Bolt the body in the rear and check your alignment at all four corners. Once everything is straight you can start to tack it together.

There are some very good body guys on here. Their advice would probably be better listened to than mine, but I think that would work.

Hutch

 

[shark3226]

Lol, yeah, minor oversight. Maybe not the best spot. But the body is extremely light when it's completely stripped and it hasn't appeared to have distorted the sheet metal

View attachment 220746

Looks good to me. I have my inner wheel wells cut out for mini tubs. So I might run a 2x2 square steel tube through from one quarter to the other and lift like from that. maybe thatll help distrubute some weight as well.

 

[jcelk]

that is quite a project you got going on there i take it you are putting a new floor from a doner car . don't cut out the rocker panels until after the floor is welded in place

 

[shark3226]

that is quite a project you got going on there i take it you are putting a new floor from a doner car . don't cut out the rocker panels until after the floor is welded in place

Well I put in some work this weekend. I found out the inner B pillar is sandwitched tight between the inner and outer rocker. So I took the outer rocker off and the rest of the pillars. Im going to dissassemble the body in the same manor. Hopefully while lifting the body to acess the full floor from underneith on my 2 post

Anything can be done with a little bit of skill and a lot of determination. You could use the frame as a jig of sorts. Bolt the donor floor to the frame (with new body bushings) and lower and raise the body on to it until it all fits together. Bolt the body in the rear and check your alignment at all four corners. Once everything is straight you can start to tack it together.

There are some very good body guys on here. Their advice would probably be better listened to than mine, but I think that would work.

Hutch

Im going to possibly use this Idea Before I fully tac it all together. That way I kno all Body mounts will be good to go. Then start the re assmbly of pillars and rockers

I cleaned up the rest of the floor. Going to dissemble to the passenger side. And then the fire wall and trunk areas. Then she will be ready for paint. I practically got this floor for free buying a shell then scraping the rest so Money saved!

 

[oldsofb]

It's a ton of work involved, but good on you for taking on the project and saving a G from the boneyard.

Hutch

 

[78Delta88]

Good post, looks like you have nice shop. Some of what you are doing is beyond my scope at the moment.

However, you kind of have what I'm looking at as well. My next project is turning a fire dept cut up 4 x 4 into this or similar.


You mention Restoration/Race... So is the final to be Resto Mod or a Race Car? I would first start from there. In your case if you are going race, I would focus first on structure such as below, then worry about sheet.

On the project I have coming up, I have full frame, running gear and not much else. I'm going to go to total DOM tubing, plate floor pan, And everything from harness to fuel, guages, lights and commo will all be hand craft. Plus I have to add ballistic lexan and panels. What little of original GM will be minimal. I might leave oem floor pan alone, just don't know yet.