Build Thread '83 T-top Coupe - Cliff Notes Edition

[Davedacarpainter]

Welcome to Dave's Garage for the Mentally Unstable!

So I go out to the garage today to grind down about 10-12 welds where the cross brace goes, right? You with me? 10-12 welds to be dressed......

I had to get about six welds on the rocker panel, they dressed soooo easy. That got me thinking I should go ahead and get the rest along the rocker, makes sense, right? Now it's just about 70-72 welds.

Then I couldn't help but look at those ugly welds I did. I mean, sure, they'll be covered with dynamat and carpeting. What if someone were ever to pull my carpet up and dynamat to check my welds though? Ok, ok, I'll get those. So 90-95 welds now.

While I smooth out the uglies I got to looking at the other welds......they're a little high.......So 170-180 welds dressed.......

But that's where I stood the line though! I'm not some simpleton with a completion fixation problem here! Am I? No, NO! By Gripthor's Hammer I am NOT.

So here's progress so far. I'm getting ready to crawl underneath now to see if anything needs grinding there.

Then I'll sand some areas and red scotchbrite the other areas, clean it all up and lay out some POR15.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

So I broke out my little compressor and my 3" DA and some 80 grit sandpaper and went to sanding. Predominantly the rocker panels, but also the rusted areas on the lower firewall where it meets up to the floorpan.

I also used red scotchbrites to scuff the other areas I intended to coat, including the whole floorpan.

I took some wax and grease remover and cleaned everything up after I blew most of the dust out.

Then I got out the POR15 and a little 4" foam roller and the cheapest paint brush I could buy and went to town.

That's it for the day. I did clean the weld areas on the undercarriage too.

Tomorrow I'll stop by our local welding supply store and get a new can of argon so I can get the cross brace.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I had to dig these out, something I bought a couple years ago when I started this. The seat brace seat studs.

I'll be needing them later today. You see, the OU Sooners are playing right now. Me and @CarMichael Angelo can't be bothered with common stuff while college football is on!

I will get back after Booger today though. You'll get to see a rare sight today, I'll have you know. Both front seats have to go in to line up the seat crossmember. It's been awhile since they've been in there.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Ok, a lot of pictures for a small piece today.

To start off with, I've decided I need to sell my hole puncher to help me pay for all the drill bits I keep buying because I forget to bring my hole puncher home. I'm such a retard. Bright side is I got this nice little drill bit. It works better than any I've used up in the past. I really like the pilot point it has.

I started by putting the studs in the crossmember (cm).

Then I bolted the seats down to be sure the cm gets welded in the proper location.

I used a marker to mark the correct location.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Then I marked the cm for holes to drill for welds. I put it in to be sure I would be hitting the right areas.

So I drilled out 77 mores holes (yes I count them, I can't help myself). Then I dressed the areas to be welded both top and bottom.

After that I put it back in the car again and marked everywhere I would need to clean the floorpan for welds. Pulled it back out and cleaned the weld spots.

Then back in again to be sure the metal was clean wherever I will weld.

So, I'm ready to weld it in now. The mosquitoes are out and in charge at the moment though. So welding will commence in the morning.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I actually did some stuff.

I welded the cm in and threw the seats back in to be double dog sure I welded it in the right place. It's good. It's amazing how more solid the floor feels with this welded in.

On to the next thing. The ladder bar system.

I started by measuring out the length I want for the rocker "jacking rails". 62" from the backside of the fender bolt to the back of the pinch weld. Cut those sections to length from my 1x1 tubing.

My tubing looked like crap, comes from sitting in the dirt in a field for several years. It took a bit of effort to get it all down to bare shiny metal. I then sprayed a couple quick coats of an etch paint on them, just to cover them for now.

I'm trying to convince myself to get after welding those in now. I've developed an attitude problem for some reason. It's still early though.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I went back out.

I got the jacking rails ready. I needed to cap off the ends and put a 45* angle on the front.

So here's pictures. Starting off I marked the 45* angle to cut

Used my die grinder to cut it out. I used some of the scrap tubing I already cut off these tubes to make the covering plates.

Partially welded them on.

Ground off the extra from the cap and welded it the rest of the way up.

Dressed the welds.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Pretty much the same routine for the rear end sides of the tubes.

Made a cap for the end

Welded them

Dressed them

Then painted both ends.

They're ready to work with now. Tomorrow I'll try to get some of the ladder system done.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I tacked the jacking rail on and made my first rung! Yay.

I’ll get it tacked on and go to the next one.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

There’s two

 

[Davedacarpainter]

It's not that difficult guys. The hardest part so far has been cleaning those nasty 1x1 tubes before I use them! It's one of the easier mods I've done so far.

If I didn't have to clean the tubing, I would probably be completely done with the driver's side. I just have the portion done in front of the MM seat brace. I still have to do a couple verticals and a couple diagonals behind the brace.

Now when I say completely done, I mean done with the initial fabrication of the system. If you look in the pictures there are only simple tack welds on the sfc's and the rocker pinch weld.

When I'm done fabricating the side I'll cut the welds on the pinch weld and sfc's area and drop the ladder system out as a unit. Then I'll do a prettier weld around each tube end.

Then I'll put it all back in and do as much of a perimeter weld around the attaching points as I can. As you can see in the picture I can go a little way over the top of the sfc's welding area.

I'll do my usual 2" spot welds along the pinch weld and am even thinking about doing a dozen or so spotwelds along the edge of the floorpan. I'm not overly sure of that, i may stitch weld instead. We'll both know when I do it.

Before it goes back in I will seam seal along the floorpan and rocker on the underneath side.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Only downside is if you add a whole bunch of those, it will weigh 4000 lbs because aren't you using some insanely thick wall stuff? But, who needs aero downforce when you can have GRAVITY on your side!

It is heavy steel Drew, I'm not sure of the actual weight either. I know I'm using about 14' per side. I'll find out what it will weigh.

Still, compared to the kegorator I intend to install in the spare tire well it should be nothing.......

 

[Davedacarpainter]

So I made a front diagonal for the ladder system (ls).

This was by far the most challenging piece to make. Of course there's the drop angle from the jr to the sfc. Plus the angle from the forward rung to the sfc. Also the sfc's front brace that attaches to the subframe need a bit of grinding to fit around it.

It probably took me an hour to make just this one piece. All of the rest of the rungs and diag pieces took at most ten minutes.

Whatever, right? Here you go. Before.

After.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Well, I’m sitting at work waiting for my 1x1 bar stock to finish baking. Here’s pictures,
All ugly

Ground down

With an acid etch paint on them because it’s raining here today.

Not that big of a deal, sure. It is nice to use my air tools to clean it up though! A shop compressor has slightly more air capacity than the old home unit, lol.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

So I went to the garage naively thinking I would bust out a couple more rungs and three or four diagonals.

God didn't keep me in suspense very long on what would be difficult.

Rung number four was the first thing up for bids. I measured and cut a piece and laid down to see how it would fit.

#4 goes right under the rear seat footwell area. It drops quite a bit here. Enough to interfere with a nice straight rung of a chassis support.

I was left with three choices, one: cut into my new floorpan to make it fit......nope. Two: beat the snot out of the new pan to make it fit the straight rung......again, nope. Three: modify the rung to fit around the floorpan......winner.

It took about 2.5 hours to make this one rung. I had to draw a basic design on the rung of the shape of the floorpan and cut it out with my die grinder. Then I went through the phase of laying on my back fitting, grinding some, fitting, grinding, etc....

Eventually I had the shape I wanted. Then I had to cap off the cut out areas. So I cut out four small caps, welded them, and dressed it. Once I had the shape all cut out I found out I'm an idiot and cut it about 1/8" too short. So I added a cap to the sfc end to give it the extra length.

It fits up wonderfully now.

So, on to rung #5.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Okie dokie, rung five was a piece of cake, maybe ten minutes involved in it.

Then the first diagonal, piece of cake again.........Then came the rear diagonal brace.........

It goes from the jr directly underneath the torque box. The torque box is in the way. Choices again, cut out the torque box? Uhmmmmmmm.........make the rear brace conform to the torque box.....

I did like before with measuring and cutting out a chunk, then the fitting and grinding thing. I cut out the first patch piece to fill the new void.

welded it up and dressed it, took another piece of scrap and partially welded it in.

Then I cut/ground off the excess and finished welding it up and dressed it.

Tack welded it into the cs.

So, here it is, the driver's side chassis support fabricated.

Now I'll need to cut the spot welds off the sfc and the rocker pinch weld, drop the cs out and put it on a stand and do some pretty perimeter welds around the connecting tubes.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I cut the spot welds on the sfc and the pinch weld and put the cs up on a stand to get ready to weld.

This is as pretty as I can seemingly come up with today, sad......

I need to dress the top welds to not be a problem when mounting back up to the floor. I think I'll dress all of them now.

Oh well, it's as solid as can be now!

Tomorrow night I'll be on my back applying the seam sealer to the floor/rocker area. I'll also drill the spot weld holes in the pinch weld and floor for the jr.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Well tonight I went ahead with something prior to Jim's warning.

I took the cs to work with me today, it seems some people are getting a little crabby with the beautiful sound of grinding metal. What's wrong with these people?! lol

First off, I got the kit for my right side cs. Some assembly required.......

I dressed all of those welds on the cs and hung it in the booth.

Then I decided I wanted to try to spray POR 15. It's a little thicker than most paints I spray at work. It sprayed fine though.

I thought I would try a bake cycle on the POR 15. So I baked it at 160* for thirty minutes. It did almost nothing for it. Heat does NOT speed up the dry time.

So while it was wasting away baking, I got one of the tubes for the right side cleaned up mostly.

Tomorrow night I would finish up those tubes to get ready to work on the right side, but I believe I'll get back on my back and coat at least the driver's side undercarriage with the POR 15 so I can get back after welding the cs in.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Tonight I coated the area of operation in POR15. From the torque box.

To the engine bay.

Then I had to break out the laquer thinner and clean myself up real quick. I looked like a dalmatian and I was TRYING to be neat! Nothing like thinner on your face to make you realize you're alive.

I ground off the areas to be welded on the cs.

Tomorrow I have to go to work for about three hours, THEN.......

I have to scuff all of that new POR15 and get a couple coats of undercoating over it. I will get the cs with undercoating as well.

Obviously I'll need to clean the areas that will be welded. That's for Sunday.

Sunday I'll weld the cs in for good. Then I'll coat the welded areas with POR15 an undercoat them.

Then on to the passenger side. Yay!

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I’m at work this morning because......money.

I finished what I wanted to get done, so in keeping with my kinder, gentler disposition I ground down the passenger side 1x1’s to get clean metal here instead of at home.

Then I coated them with the same etch paint as before.

Before

After (mostly)

I’m getting ready to leave work in a few minutes. I need to go do the undercoating today too.