And here is where my latest Tale of Project Regress ends for now............
What you now see here is a freshly installed lower sill assembly in my 85 SS Monte Carlo, it consists of a new inner rocker panel, which I had to fabricate out of flat body metal as they are not offered as a ready to install part, a new outer rocker panel, I was able to purchase maybe as much as a decade or longer ago; can't honestly recall, plus the front and back transitions from the rocker up into the pillars.
A couple of close ups of the finished reconstruction of the front or A pillar. For those who saw the opening pictures, this was a total replacement in and of itself as the original lower section of the pillar was beyond repair. The donor segment came from a 1979 Pontiac Grand AM. I knew about the car ahead of time but at that point it was still on the road and the owner was just someone that I knew well enough to say "yo" to but no closer. I was surprised to find it at the yard but a closer inspection yielded evidence that it had other issues so he had booted it down the road. His loss, my gain.
Again, for those contemplating a project of this kind, be very aware that anything you harvest from a donor car might look close to what you need but may also still tend to need massaging or tweaking to get it to fit absolutely as you want it to. The resident architecture of the vehicle will play a large part in how much work you will have to do to achieve that "perfect" fit.
Moving on to the other end of things, and again, this was a removal and replacement, only the section in question was the same section. Again, be aware that if you cut away a portion of a panel to gain access to what is behind it, when it comes time to rehang that piece of panel, it might just surprise you and not want to return to where it came from. In this case, apparently the upper section of the panel assembly had twisted away out of alignment; probably due to old age and body movement over time. For the install, I had to push and shove the returning section into as close to original position as original that I could find, anchor it using a couple of tacks, and then , tack by tack, "encourage' it to "remember" it's location and shift around to fit as it used to. Although it still looks like it needs to be dressed and cleaned up, that is the light and angle of the shot. It is pretty much where it should be and solidly burned into place.
Just a last look at the upper row of plug welds that I used to secure the outer rocker panel. Mostly, that way is about how the factory would have done it only they used some kind of long throat fusion welder instead of getting up close and personal with a hand held MIG. While they don't look pretty, they are smooth to the touch and sit flush with the metal around them so the plastic sill sleeve that sits on the joint will fit as it should and the sill plate will sit down correctly as well.
The last step for now will be to rehang the door, as is, I have no time right now to re-skin it as other projects are demanding their turns. The process for that will be identical to what I did with the driver's side so there may never be any individual shots of this side to record it as well. One thing for sure, if the Insurance Company ever attempts to quibble about the value of my Monte, well, there must as many as 500 or possibly more pictures that show work like this that has been done. Citing the old adage that "A picture is worth a thousand words" I would guess that my word count for all this is up around a half mil, +/-. 😵💫
CopperNick
