Progress Thread LILCBRA's 87 GT vert project (now prepping to replace the left floor pan)

Been busy with a bunch of other stuff the past few days, but I took a couple hours and removed the side skirts on the driver's side. The rocker looks solid, the door has some paint lifting from under the molding, and the lower mounting bracket is kinda nasty. Also looked a bit closer at the rear quarter where the damage is as there's another patch panel up on Ebay. It looks a bit better than the one I have now, but it also looks like it may only have the bare minimum of material for what needs replaced. A new quarter panel would definitely give me enough material to work with, but I can't see myself spending that kind of money on one right now. Good thing I've got plenty to do before I need to make that decision.

RaggedGT said:

Wide body time

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I've toyed with this idea.....
Someone made (or maybe they're still available? Haven't looked in a while....) slightly wider flares that more or less look stock. Thought that would be the way I'd go if I did it.

Like these.

AeroCoupe said:

Take a shop rag and put a magnet inside of the rag folded over the magnet once. Gently run the manget over that area as there is bondo all over it. You can tell where the bondo is by how well the magnet sticks to the car. You may need a larger panel than you think.

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Here's more of that area of the quarter panel. I don't think there's anything there, but it's possible.


Inside the trunk



Backside of the wheel well

Dash is out.



Pulled the harness from the engine compartment to keep it all in the dash. After pulling the liner and disconnecting the washer bottle, I took a closer look at the frame rail area. It doesn't look too bad from this side, only time will tell about the engine side.



Found some more wiring issues as well. These will be addressed while it's out.

Haven't done anything with the car this week, been busy with other stuff with only 2 night off before having to go back to work tomorrow. One of those things was cleaning up one stall in the garage that had gotten out of hand. I did spend a little time looking at the floors and trying to come up with a plan of attack, then realized that the flange that's spot welded to the inner rocker was covered which then led me to do some Google-fu to see what I could find. I've been a member of Corral for almost as long as I have here, but never sign in over there. I just see things from time to time through searches and stuff - like this post:


I'm sharing here for my own reference later, starting at post 157. Shoutout to @tonys90vert for his posts and pics! Looks like I may be in for a process....

One reason I didn't do anything tonight is that I can't find my spotweld cutter (which probably isn't a huge deal....) to start drilling on spotwelds. So I got on trusty Amazon and ordered a new set as well as another chisel for my air hammer. I'll see about making some more progress next week just before Christmas if everything shows up. Otherwise it'll probably just be running the heat gun to finish removing the sound deadener.

A couple minor updates: I'm on night 2 of 5 off in a row and haven't slept worth a , maybe 3 hours at a time for a total of maybe 12-16(?) over the past almost 48 hours. But I did make a few purchases to help with the car. First, I took advantage of my inside track membership at Harbor Freight and picked this bad boy up:



along with a couple other goodies. Then a stop at Metal Supermarkets in Cedar Rapids for a 12x48 sheet of 20 gauge to repair the toe boards.

I've been putting some serious thought into the rabbit hole I'm going down. I think it's time to blow the car apart, starting with the engine and transmission. I feel they've gotta come out for me to properly address the rust issues in the floor. After going through the rest of that linked thread, I'm definitely hoping to not go down the same path as @tonys90vert - but I can't guarantee I won't. Time will tell I suppose, and this is going to take me a while. There are a few things I'd really like to get done on the new house relatively soon, so that'll take time and funds away from the car. And, as we all know, it takes a healthy amount of money to get this kind of stuff done, so....

In any event, I feel I have enough stuff purchased already to keep making steady progress, it just may jump around from one project to the next and back again. But I think, as long as I can get some good rest in instead of this catnap thing I've got going on, that I'm going to start on removing the engine/transmission next, then back to the interior to remove the heater box and steering column brace before really getting to the meat and potatoes of the floors.