So back last fall I had started to work on the passenger's side rocker panel and discovered that the lower A pillar outer skin was marginal for use as part of the replacement. I did happen to have a lower section of an A Pillar for the passenger side that had been harvested from a 79 Grand AM; got both sides in fact, and chose to split the skin from that and graft it to the Monte's pillar as a better component.
What you see above are the tools I used for that exercise, my trusty short handled maul, a Steck panel splitter that took forever to come in at the suppliers, and my new Jaw Horse floor model vice. This last became a needed item when its predecessor lost the ability to perform a tight grip on anything placed in its jaws.
And this is/was the lower A pillar, my candidate for a skin transplant. You can clearly see all the plug/rose welds that had to be identified and drilled out. GM did not chintz out on the shear quantity of welds that they had generated. I did learn that, during the skinning process, I had failed to find one but the skin itself showed no overt dimple to betray the presence of a weld. so.........
And this was what all the beating and hacking was all about. When the structure as a whole was removed from the donor hulk, the yardman chose the easiest path and made his cut half way between the upper and lower door hinges. As a result the hinge backer plate with its bosses and threads is still attached to the skin at this point.
It should be noted that, as part of the dissassembly procedure, the welds that held the section of side panel and toe panel that came with the pillar proper to the pocket that carries that hinge support plate also had to be located and drilled out. Once they were broken free, the complete inner section dropped away, leaving the outer skin behind.
Another shot of the backside of the outer skin. The large flange on the left side of the picture is actually the leading edge of the plllar and, together with the inner elements, is where the firewall and toe board also get attached. For orientation, you are looking at the part from the engine bay side of things and the upper or top edge of the skin shown in the picture is the cut off point at which the complete pillar was dissected away from the upper hals.
The next step is going to be thorough cleaning of the inner surfaces and some hammer and dolly work to correct some of the twisting and tweaking that the various flanges suffered during their divorce from the inner structure. I do not plan on using the whole piece. The plan is to do a comparison between what I have and what is damaged/rusted on the existing part and use that to decide where to cut away the old section and where to cut the new one so it will fit correctly onto the pillar. There is a certain amount of importance to all this as both the inner and outer rocker panels index into this pillar and use it to maintain their alignment with the rest of the door sill. Any mistakes and the door gap at the sill might not line up correctly anymore.
Nick
