Thankfully it stopped raining today around noon, so I was able to get back to work on the car.
I decided to redo the outboard section of the toe board patch since the welds between it and the inner torque box didn't take for the same reason the frame rail ones didn't yesterday.
I also decided to cut out a small piece to bridge the gap where I cut too much of the original toe board out.
I am getting a feel for how the welder works. I figured out that one of the things that was hampering my welds before was how I was holding the gun at too much of an angle in an effort to better see what I was doing. Keeping the gun more or less perpendicular resulted in much better welds. I still had some hiccups, but it turned out alright.
I also got the outer torque box fitted to the car. I ended up sticking it in the vise and making the upper bend a little sharper to take up the gap. I then hammered the top lip to get it flush to the inner torque box. I ended up removing the parking brake pass through since it was getting in the way and I won't need it on this car anyway. It was getting dark, so I decided to call it a night and weld it in tomorrow rather than run the risk of screwing up welds, getting frustrated, and then going to bed angry. I also took your advice and took it down to bare metal where I'll be welding.
There are some dents in the forward portion of the floor support and frame rail that are preventing the outer torque box from sitting flush against it completely. I'll see if I can address that tomorrow.
I was also having an issue with a gap between the torque box and the outboard side of the frame rail. I'm hoping the c-clamp I'm using does the trick.
I think it was a good day. Let me know what y'all think and if you have any more welding pointers.