Progress Thread The "grátis" 1966 Coupe - final sheet metal repairs

Are you talking about just filling the gap by the wheelhouses with seam sealer? If that's a fine way to go, I'm down with that.
That’s what I’m saying, you should’ve seen some of the gaps I revealed on both Doby and Booger when I removed their original seam sealers. Of course they’re fox bodies, the classics may have had slightly tighter tolerances.

Aftermarket parts are notorious for not fitting just right. If it’s not a structural issue, improvise.
 
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That’s what I’m saying, you should’ve seen some of the gaps I revealed on both Doby and Booger when I removed their original seam sealers. Of course they’re fox bodies, the classics may have had slightly tighter tolerances.

Aftermarket parts are notorious for not fitting just right. If it’s not a structural issue, improvise.
I don't think the tolerances for the classics were any tighter, really.

Is there a certain seam sealer you'd recommend?
 
My brothers 68 convertible had a gap a half inch wide and 10 inches long beside the floor and the rear seat brace ,it was filled with tar ,when we finally got all the tar out we found a yellow circle around the area ,i guess the circle meant fill it any way you can
 
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I managed to get the entire floor pan welded in today except for one little screw I missed. I had a few problem welds at the start that required some more fiddling with the welder. The rocker panels were tough to weld to. After a little bit I just started pry testing every single weld before moving on to another.

I did the relief cut and made a patch to fill it.

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I think I'm getting better at this.

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There is about a 3/16" gap between the seat platforms and the floor. It's worse on the passenger side. Any advice on dealing with this? I was thinking of just hitting them with a mallet and possibly tweaking the inboard flanges to help them sit lower. Thoughts? I'd like to get these welded in tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.

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Overall, I'm pleased.

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I managed to get the entire floor pan welded in today except for one little screw I missed. I had a few problem welds at the start that required some more fiddling with the welder. The rocker panels were tough to weld to. After a little bit I just started pry testing every single weld before moving on to another.

I did the relief cut and made a patch to fill it.

E3aIIHs.jpg


I think I'm getting better at this.

YE61mjh.jpg


There is about a 3/16" gap between the seat platforms and the floor. It's worse on the passenger side. Any advice on dealing with this? I was thinking of just hitting them with a mallet and possibly tweaking the inboard flanges to help them sit lower. Thoughts? I'd like to get these welded in tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.

yA7DHPH.jpg

BmzR3OW.jpg

658QrW6.jpg

p4TqKck.jpg


Overall, I'm pleased.

np5uHFk.jpg
Drill your plug weld holes ,stand on seat platform while welding ,should do the trick
 
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Family was visiting this week and left today, so I didn't do much to the car other than grind down all the welds and spray primer on them. Grinding the welds wasn't nearly as painful as I was anticipating and only took about half an hour. If I may say so, it went...smoothly...?

I drilled holes for plug welds on the seat platforms and set them in place, I will try to get to that tomorrow. I'll also try to see if I can finish rust proofing and reinstalling the cowl tomorrow as well. I've decided to leave well enough alone and leave the lower cowl installed since it isn't rusted through anyway. I'll take care of surface rust and get that taken care of.

@horse sence you mention to stand on the seat platforms to weld them in. Do you recommend against using the sheet metal screw method on the seat platforms? They sit in place fairly well with a bit of weight on them, but the passenger side needs a bit of extra persuasion.

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And the original tooling tail panel arrived today. NPD never sent a shipment notification, so I was pleasantly surprised.

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why not use a clamp set up like you did with the floor supports. I used 2x4's and threaded rod to do the seat pans. Worked great for me.

Andy
Hmm. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I don’t think I have any threaded rod, though. I’ll try the standing method and go get some threaded rod if that doesn’t work well enough.
 
Hoping to get the seat platforms installed today. I probably won’t reinstall the the cowl completely since I don’t have seam sealer for the vent hats.

That little patch I made looks pretty good!

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Got the seat platforms welded in today. It went smoothly. I made sure to get the rocker panels VERY clean before welding this time. Consequently, welding went much better this time.

I was going back through @Davedacarpainter 's cliff notes thread when he welded in Booger's floor pan. I've been doing pretty much everything he has, so that made me feel better about my abilities.

Prepped for welding.

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And done.

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I originally bought some TIG welding gloves, however, they just weren't up to the harsh working environment. I grabbed a set of new gloves from HF. I'm a master welder now.

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After grinding down the welds, I wend ahead a wire wheeled the area where I patched the toe boards since some surface rust had developed in that area. Those welds are solid, but boy has my welding improved since then. I went over everything with primer and then some black paint to keep the rust at bay.

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I also decided to not leave well enough alone and removed the lower cowl today. I was looking around under the dash and there is a lot of surface rust under there. So I decided to remove the lower for better access to remedy the under dash area as well as to address the rust I knew was between the lower cowl and the firewall.

The boy was helping me.

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I actually got this removed by myself in under an hour. Everything is getting a lot easier. I'm very grateful for that. It's all the experience and advice I get here that makes it possible.

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This area NEEDS to be media blasted. I'm going to clean up the upper and lower off the car and get a HF sand blaster to take care of this area properly. This can't wait until Arkansas since I'll need this area to be solid before moving the car again.

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Turns out there was an area that has some rust through. This is nothing compared to other cars I've seen, of course. This will be simple to patch.

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I'm not really too discouraged. Other than a couple small areas that are rusted through, the firewall area is in surprisingly good, if pitted, shape. On the plus side, I can do this now.

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It welds first ,then seam sealer ,i use 3M tan sealer it looks like the same sealer that ford used . It comes in a caulking tube but you can spread it with a small brush
Do you have a part number or link?

I'm also happy to report that the frame rails (or any of the car for that matter) didn't move a millimeter when I cut out the spot welds on the lower cowl. It's good to know I supported everything properly.
 
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