trotterm

Don't bother answering that question. I know It is not really worth it but I am going to anyway. I bought this 84 Trans Am back in 96 when I was 16 It was rusted out when I bought it under new low quality paint job. My Friends dad use to ask me if I painted it with a roller ever time I saw him. I spent hundreds of hours on it and I eventually repainted it in my grade 13 auto body class at high school. The body is still pretty well mint It has been off the road now for 6 years as I got tied up in some home renovations. I decided to break it out this year. There were 3 things I wanted to do with it though first. Change the broken steering box, the worn out steering linkage and put some cats on it. I knew the floor had a few soft spots on it and I had tossed around the idea of getting a newer GTA but eventually decided to stick with the original. I got the steering on and the cats mocked up when I decided to put about a 6 inch patch around the soft spot on the passenger font foot well. Well, I got ripping and tearing and one thing led to another and now this is what I am faced with.

trotterm

The whole section was rusted out so I just cut the whole thing out. There was a 2 bit screwed on patch over the side of the rocker that the previous owner had put on. Ripped that off and found the front of the rocker was gone. The worst was yet to come. I pulled out the insulation on the firewall only to find that it was completely gone. Even the rain gutter is gone as well. I am now regretting that one winter I drive this thing back in 97. Not that the previous owners 14 years of winter driven helped.

82tarecaro

iTrader: (4)

Your links aren't working. I understand the sentimental value of a car - I have had mine for 22 years. If you feel it is worth it, go for it.

trotterm

Now why stop there. Off comes the fender and onto the wheel well.

Attachment 228245
Attachment 228246

trotterm

More wheel well

trotterm

Anyone else not able to see the pics? This is my first time uploading pics but they show up on my screen.

82tarecaro

iTrader: (4)

Some are working for me now.

trotterm

So I do have some experience with this type of work. I started an apprenticeship in auto body back in the day before I bailed and went on to other things. I have a decastar flux core mig welder which is a POS in my opinion and is not going to hack it on this job. I decided to blow the bank and pick up an almost new Lincoln mig pak 140 and a tank of argon c02 mix for about $700. The difference is night and day in the quality of the welds, reduction in spatter and you don't get a massive headache from the flux fumes. Especially when you are welding for the better part of 5 hours straight like I was. Definitely recommend going with gas if you can afford it.

I started off with the rocker corner. Criticism accepted on the weld visuals. What can I say, I have been out of the game a while and I got the shakes. Solid as hell though. The silver stuff you see on the inside is zinc weld through primer. It is good stuff to use for some protection and it is conductive so you can weld right on it.






I got a bit further over this weekend. I will take some more pics over the next day or 2.

Chevy8588

iTrader: (1)

holy crap, props on fixing it up. be careful the car doesnt tweak!

LarryL

Make sure you take care like chevy8588 said. Mine was worse than yours. Before I started I put the car up on blocks supporting the car on the main frames front and rear. I welded box channel between doors to keep everything square, then cut away and rewelded everything in. The biggest job was welding in new floor to rocker panels. The factory only had a few welds. I remover old welds and welded the new floor top and botton the complete length of the car. The real time consuming job was making new seat rails. When your finished you will be very happy.

trotterm

Thanks for the tip guys. The majority of the structural items are still in tact so I think I will be ok, but I still have the door on and I have been checking that it still closes every so often.

LarryL, I am curious what you did for the seat rail. I stopped the floor cut out right at the rail as I did not want to replace it beause I am making the floor pan from sheet metal rather than getting it from a donor car. However the seat rail is in fairly bad shape and probably should be replaced ro at least beefed up a bit.

trotterm

Here is the firewall before and after. This was sort of a half *** job on this part as I did not want to rip the entire dash apart to get at it from the inside. I used tack welds to keep the heat down and prevent setting the HVAC box on fire. I will use some seam sealer later to seal it up.

trotterm

I got the wheel well all finished tonight. I should mention that I am using 18 gauge on all these spots. I polished of the first LD tank of mig gas tonight as well. Going to drop another $70 on tank #2 tomorrow.

trotterm

Rocker is all done as well.

spdmetl

Good for you, rust repair god! Keep the pix coming...

82tarecaro

iTrader: (4)

Wow - great job! Just wondering - how are you bending the panels to match? They match up really good.

trotterm

I use cardbord as a template and cut that out until it is the right size. Then trace that out on the steel. Cardboard is good because it only bends one way, somewhat like steel. If it is a straight bend then I clamp it to my work bench and hammer it over the corner. For the round stuff I have been just hammering on it while it is in place with a tack weld or two holding it down. If you tack at one end, hamer a bit, then tack again a couple inches over, then hammer again, etc it will generally give you the best result. The tacks stop the metal from bouncing and cause it to bend when you hit it rather than bounce. For the floor pan that I have not put in yet I used 22 gauge as I needed somthing a bit easier to mold. I then laid that over the floor befor cutting it out, clamed it with vice grips and pounded on it for a while. I think it turned out pretty well but we will see when it goes in. There will probably be a big gap between it and the frame rail but hopefully I can get that down once there is a few tacks holding it.

Awesome-X

Post a pic of your floor pans when you're done, I have to do mine soon and I'd like to see how yours turn out.

LarryL

WOW, nice job, your welds look great. I would never try to make floor myself. From what you have show'n us you can do, they should look great. I just purchased new ones. Keep posting the pix,s love to see people doing things like your doing.

trotterm

I got the floor in this weekend and it ended up working out a lot better than I expected. Beats paying $300 for a new floor side and another $200 for shipping. Not sure why these floors are so expensive when you get get a 69 floor side for $70.

trotterm

In a somewhat unrelated story, I also got these magnaflow cats installed. I had to cut a couple sections out of the exhaust to clear the repaired rocker. I think I just pounded the rocker out if the way when I originally put this dual exhaust on lol. Figured I would do it right this time. Again the new welder came in handy. I love this thing.

Awesome-X

Too bad you live in Canada or I'd have you do mine. How did you get the new floor to shape so close to the original?

trotterm

I left the existing pan in there, cut out a cardboard template to fit in there then transfered that to 22 gauge steel and stuck it in there. Then put some tack welds along the back and trans well sides. Then went to town hammering with a mini hand held sledge hammer. I put a few more tack welds in there to hold it down while hammering. I also heated up a few areas with a torch thinking that it would form a bit easier but did not find that it helped much. Then cut the welds and removed, cut out the floor and put the pan back in there after drilling holes for spot welds to the frame sections. Welded it to the trans well side first and then started hammering again as there was still about a 1" gap between the pan and the frame rail. You need to leave the door side of the pan a little longer for when you pound the pand down to the rail. Next the spot welds, then the back and last the door side. The front was a separate piece obviously that I did last. It was faily straight forward.

I would not advise going any thicker then 22 gauge for the floor as you will have trouble getting it to form. It is pretty strong and the shape and cold working adds a lot of strength to it. I did use 18 gauge for everything else.

92 Camaro

iTrader: (1)

man you're doing an excellent job. similar job I'm doing on my Mustang, except my rocker is fine. I can tell you have motivation here so keep up the good work.

Awesome-X

Yeah, I'll be doing that, then. My rust isn't anywhere near as bad as yours so it shouldn't be as difficult. I'll take your advice and probably go with 20 gauge steel. This is honestly a really inspiring thread, keep up the awesome work!

trotterm

This is the last piece of the pie. Can't really see what is going on here from the tremclad.

trotterm

So I thought I was done but I figured I would poke around since the interior was already half ripped apart and I spent a lot of time jacking it up extra high which I would highly recommend. Makes working underneath the car so much easier on you. Anyways, long story short, I am just getting started. The pans underneath the rear seats are done. I had fiberglassed them when I first bought the car before I knew anything about cars.





They were a lot worse then they look as they a rusted from the bottom and it did not go al the way through but the metal was super thin in a few spots.

trotterm

I decided to make these pans out of 3 pieces as it was going to be too hard to get the steel to form to the required shape. The lower piece is already in on this photo and I am fitting up the cardboard template for the 2nd.



Spray paint works when you are out of pencils as I was here.



And now the 2nd piece welded in and hammered over to get the shape. The frame rails below are pretty rusty at the back here. I ground as much as much of the rust off as I could and then soaked it in rust check.

trotterm

Here is the finished product with the 3rd piece in. Sort of a bad angle on this pic.



Going to tackle the other side tomorrow.

trotterm

This is going to be the next project. I did not think there were any issues here, but looks like the previous owner fiberglassed and bondo'd over what was left of the pinch weld inside both rear wheel wells. I am pretty sure now that this car was winter driven every year until I bought it as it was only 12 years old at that time. This repair is going to be interesting as there is literally nothing left of the pinch welds. What ever I put in here will have to be welded to the frame rail. Looks like I will be gutting the interior. Not sure if that is going to give me access or not though at this point.

trotterm

Here is a picture of the car. All torn apart and all.

91 Droptop

You are a welding machine my brother, most people would have just sent her to the bone yard. Keep up the good work, it will all be worth it in the end.

TheGr8erG00d

iTrader: (2)

Great job! And power to you for being willing to put this much work into saving the car!

Luckily for me, my Iroc was a Georgia car and is solid as a rock. My 52 ****** pickup on the other hand... well, I'll know your pain as soon as I get started on it.

84 1LE

iTrader: (9)

Lotta rust, Excellent work & interesting choice of colors.Was that the PO's work too?

VMX12Rider

Wish I could weld half that good.. or at all for that matter..

84Camaro_L69

Wow! They're right, you're inspiring! My '84 Z28 is an original up-state NY car, and back in 2004 I spent a small fortune paying someone to do a patch job on my floor pans, replacing quarters, doors, fenders, and they didn't do it right because the rust has come back. Not to mention I had rusted out welds in my wheel well, in my trunk, and along my rocker panels like you. The next time I will be doing the work myself, and your thread shows me that I'm not crazy for continuing to dump money into my ride. I drive my Z28 for a couple of months daily, let it sit for a couple of months, and then rotate to driving it. I can't wait until it's as solid as your car.

Now for the question to you or anyone else who can help me and others aspiring to do what the author has done to help all that may read this thread:

Did or do you have subframe connectors? I ask because of the amount of rot around my rocker panels and anywhere else that salt water could've hidden in my car for 20 years. I was considering adding in subframe connectors to stabilize my chasis for now and to aid in doing rocker, floor pan, everything critical to body alignment repairs in a couple of years. Does it make sense to do it for chasis alignment? My shocks and struts are new'ish (about 10K miles on them), but springs are all original and sagging. I would replace them before adding the connectors if you think it makes sense.

trotterm

I was responsible for the color choice actually. Love it or hate it. I redid the body, shaved the door handles and painted it at my auto class in highschool my last year. That is my main rason for fixing it now. When I was still up in the air on if I was going to scrap it, evey time I went under the car I would say it was toast but then I would come up and look at it and would think "but it looks so good". I also did not realize it was anywhere near this far gone. If I was going to start over knowing what I know now I may not have bothered, but I am in to deep now to stop.

trotterm

I do not have the sub frame connectors on mine so I am probably not the best person to answer this but I would suspect that it would be of some benefit. Guess it depends how bad your rockers are. Mine are not too too bad. It was mainly just the front inside plate on the front end. The rest of it is solid enough to hold everything in place while that was fixed. If your rockers are done and need to be completely replaced with donor ones then I would suggest that you will have to do more then sub frame connectors, like welding some bars in the door jams temporarily to hold everything from stretching out or shrinking. also a good idea to support the car in multiple locations on the frame connectors if you can come up with enough jacks.

84Camaro_L69

It looks pretty bad. I've got a couple sets of jack stands, and will probably jack it up and take pictures (flash on) so I can compare damage from front to back. I had sealed it up with truck liner stuff 7 years ago, and last year I noticed most of it has fallen off. So now I'm planning to attack the rockers, patch panel floor pans, and wheel wells the right way.

musclecar70sfan

iTrader: (1)

Wow looks good so far! Keep us posted.

midias

Awesome job man I love seeing people fix rust makes me not feel bad about all the time I spent doing the same thing. Don't forget the POR15 or similar coating (rust bullet eastwood ect.) I used POR15 inside and outside my 1984 TA which also had a cheap paint job that is probably hiding some decent amount of bondo

trotterm

Thanks for the encouraging words all. I finished the other rear seat pan and I have the passenger rear wheel well about 1/2 way done. It is proving to be the most time consuming of all these patches. Also polished off my 2nd spool of mig wire last night. I bought a 10lb one today so that should get me through the rest of this. We are suppose to be having a warm weekend so I should get at least the one side done by Sunday. I will get some pics up then.

I am curious if this por 15 stuff is any better then a few coats of rust paint. Has anyone used it on their car over rusty areas say 10 to 15 years ago and found that it holds up over time? I'm sure the stuff looks good when it goes on but never really read anything about how it holds up over time. I have been pondering getting some but no one sells it around here so it is like $90 to get a 6 pack to my door. I'm probably still going to get it anyways but a little sceptical

trotterm

Been out of the game for a bit but I got a few more things done on it. Here is the finished wheel painted and rocker guarded.

trotterm

trotterm

Back on the passenger rear seat well. By this Time I gave up on working around the interior components and ripped everything out but the dash and headliner. The structural parts below are pretty rusty here. I used some rust converter on them and soakked everything I could get at in rust preventative oil spray.

trotterm

On this rear wheel well I had to reshape it a bit from what it was to make the reapir. More room for larger tires though, not like I need it. There is a bit of a funny looking jog in the repair on the top right side. That is where the support for the rear seat upper post attaches and I did not want to mess with it. It also was not rusted around there so it works although not pretty.

trotterm

GregLobb

What happened to this car?

trotterm

Finished the floors, added some cats then ended up moving. Car has been sitting in my parents garage for the last 3 years. Got caught up in Renos, babies, life. Lol.

GregLobb

Great job
Anything recent

Greg