Build Thread '83 T-top Coupe - Welding Holes in My Rear

[BlakeusMaximus]

Hard core Dave. What time do you wake up this morning, 3am?

 

[stanglx2002]

You said pictures in the morning...well it's morning

 

[droopie85gt]

I prefer coffee most of the time, but I do appreciate your prep work!

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Alright, I’m in the garage.

I’m going to start with the difficult one first. If you remember the driver’s side on Doby, I had to contend with the curved frame rail. Same thing here. I’ll do it differently this time and take care of that early on.

I’ll post more pictures of what I’ll do a little later.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Ok, taking a cool off break.

I got the left side tack welded.

Then I dealt with the curvature of the frame rail. I did pretty much the same thing that I did with Doby. I tacked the ends of the frame rail, then took a cut off wheel and made a slice down the edge.

Then I clamped the vertical section to the frame.

And tack welded that part.

Then I ground the edge back to follow the contour of the frame rail and tacked that edge.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Got the left side in, gonna start on the right side now.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Right side is tacked in.

 

[a91what]

Looking good so far Dave keep it up you will get more done in an day than most of us get done all year.

 

[BlakeusMaximus]

Looks like fun Dave. For some weird reason I wish I was doing that to my car, even though it doesn’t need it. Although I do like the smoothed panels. It’s coming together fast.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I finished the right side. I'm tired.

That's it for today.

Tomorrow I'll finally weld that little firewall brace in. I'll reinforce the clutch cable hole as well.

I got to do something a little different tomorrow as well. The floor pan I got for Booger is for '87^ fox bodies. I'm going to need to modify the parking brake handle area. So I'm going to disconnect the parking brake and use my reciprocating saw to cut out that portion of the transmission tunnel.

The new pan is at work, I'll modify it there next week.

Then, THEN! I'm going to be slinging mud in the engine bay! Woohoo! I will start with the firewall and work my way forward. I can't imagine I'll get more than the firewall done.

Bright side? Maybe by next weekend I can start working on replacing the floorpan!

 

[General karthief]

Is the 87 ^ e brake mechanism that much different? Can you just use an 87^ e brake mechanism?

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Is the 87 ^ e brake mechanism that much different? Can you just use an 87^ e brake mechanism?

I could easily enough, but then I'd have to change my console. So, not really.

 

[General karthief]

Ya, keep forgetting it's a 4 eye

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I welded in my reinforcement plate, then I cut out the emergency brake handle area out of the floor pan. I’ll take it to work with me tomorrow and do the modification on the new floor pan.

You can see in the picture that the eb mounting point is a little towards the right side for four I’d floorpans.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

It’s time!

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I spent the last couple of hours working on the firewall. I got kind of pooped, so I quit after I got the mudwork pretty well done.

I still have to finish the edges, straighten a couple lines and glaze it though. Since I didn't want to do that now I etch primered over the bondo' d areas. This will protect the bare metal underneath the bondo from rust for right now.

 

[droopie85gt]

That's not right...that firewall looks better than any part of my car! And here I thought you were just going to blow today off and drink beer!

 

[BlakeusMaximus]

He drank beer as he was doing it droopie, cmon.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

That's not right...that firewall looks better than any part of my car! And here I thought you were just going to blow today off and drink beer!

He drank beer as he was doing it droopie, cmon.

You're both right Drew, Blake. I'm blowing the rest of the day off and I'm drinking beer now.......

 

[95BlueStallion]

Good work as always!