I was wanting some advice from you all about what to do about this hack job done by the previous owner.

 

WTF! I would drop the tank and weld in some patch panels.

 

Thanks for the advice and yeah the previous owner really screwed it up.

 

Just got done fixing a hack job similar to yours, although not as large as that but I was lucky and could weld mine back together without having to use a patch panel. Things people do to these cars are ridiculous! Unfortunately your gaps look too wide to just weld it back together, you will have to use a patch panel or some strips of metal to fill in the gaps so you can weld it back together. If it were me I would try to find a another car that you could cut out the entire panel and use that to either repair yours or replace yours. Looks like they used a air nibbler to cut it open.

 

WOW, that's worse than mine! Mine looked like someone did it with scissors

I second just getting another panel and welding it in.

 

Thanks for the advice guys and yeah the gaps are to far apart to weld back together. I think welding in another panel would be a good idea, luckily the car is pretty much rust free so won't have to do to much body work.

 

There are guys that will defend this crap on this forum until the end of days, and it just makes my blood boil.

Any time you tell someone it's ok to cut an access hole, 99% of the time this is what happens. By the time they were done ruining the car, they could have done it right.

Good on you for wanting to take care of that. I am sure you can find a panel in a yard to cut out or someone here could send you one off one of their junk cars.

 

Crush it and move on.

 

Its gonna be slow progress, the engine will come first since it was shot when I bought the car.

 

I could use that gas tank

 

I haven't looked but I imagine there are plenty of examples of what a properly done job should look like. Anyone have pics or a link?

 

I've seen some pics of it done correctly and that look a lot better then what they did here.

 

Yeah, it's easy, just remove enough parts that you can lower the rear end down and forward out of the way, pull the heat shields and cat-back, the tank practically falls out.

By the time you pull the carpet, cut a hole, cut all the hard lines, finagle the pump out of the tank, and devise a way to get it all back together neatly, you can do it just as easily from the bottom.

 

I have seen some decent LOOKING access panels done in Fbodys but the biggest mistake everyone makes when doing it is they dont seal the panel back up when they are done doing the pump. If you have just the slightly exhaust leak then guess where all the fumes are going to collect when your sitting in traffic? Yep, right up in that area under the car. Now, the fumes can get into the cabin and we all know with CO can do to us.

IF and thats a big if, you are going to venture down this road then I highly suggest you take the right steps to ensure that the panel you make is properly sealed when you're done the job. Use seam sealer and apply it with an acid brush dipped in thinner.


And for the record, I do NOT approve of this method of gaining access to the fuel pump. It just shows laziness.

 

People that do crap like this should be banned from owning/driving anything.
The guy even cut it in the wrong place.

 

Yeah they cut it way off. When I pulled the carpet and found this the pump hadn't even been changed, the dead pump was still in the tank and they had some used pump under the carpet sitting on top of where they had hacked it up.

 

That's all well and good for a one time deal and I would agree.
If regular maintenance and/or inspections are required (say for a race car more than a street car) or you're constantly fiddling with the pump and/or sending unit, then the access panel goes a long ways towards streamlining the process.
And if your exhaust is so old that you have to cut it off, then there's a whole other dimension added to putting it back together. Been there. Done that.


I haven't done a search here lately but if anyone has a good example of a properly done (and sealed) access panel, I'd like to see it. It's something I'm considering as my car evolves from street to more race orientated.

 

Another reason I am not a fan of the mod is they often instruct the people to cut the hard metal lines... and use rubber lines as a coupler. That is a no-no for many self-evident reasons.

Obviously race cars are special case, and you're probably already modifying the car to kingdom come anyways.

 

 

Sounds like you might have been better off getting another project. I've seen running third gen projects without crash damage for under a grand.

 

In my area its kinda hard to find a running one for that cheap, I paid $650 for this one.

 

There's a boulder in front of your tire.....

 

That's the brake and cruise control

 

Lol yeah it was working for the brakes since the driveway is steep and the brakes aren't that good.

 

Holy shnikeys!

 

Maybe it's just me, but just looking at the many "access hole" methods posted here; it seems like a ton more work than just dropping everything out the bottom.

The evening I drove my Camaro home off the used car lot back in '89, I filled the tank and discovered it had the infamous filler neck leak.

A few weeks later after running the tank almost dry, I installed a brand new GM tank and it wasn't a big deal other than manipulating that bulky tank into place.

No, I didn't bother replacing the factory fuel pump.

Air nibblers and cutting torches are handfuls of destruction in the wrong hands.

 

I can't believe that nobody has linked to my build thread (https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...oming-aka.html) or the specific thread I did about repairing the hack job that the previous owner left me (https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...rect-fuel.html) or the other threads I have posted mine up.

Mine wasn't as bad as yours but it was still a hack job.




I took the time to do it right and this is what I ended up with. If I recall, the trunk area is 16 or 18 gauge metal, probably 18. I used a 16 gauge sheet cut to size with an oval cut out of the middle. Then I used nut serts on the perimeter. The nuts just barely stick out of the nut serts, are blunt tipped and are maybe 2" from the tank so I'm not worried about puncturing the gas tank. I do use weatherstrip on the perimeter of the panel as a gasket.





In the specific thread I made about doing this I posted several pictures of member's access panels that were done right along with links to their threads and pictures of stock vehicles that have this from the factory.

 

It's not.

I can't think of any good excuse to cut the hole. It's not as difficult to do it the right way.

Most people who are looking for a short cut like cutting the hole, aren't going to take the time to do the job remotely that nice.

I'd still prefer having fuel lines that haven't been hacked and spliced.


The hackjob in the OP, pretty much would require welding in a new panel from a donor car.

 

Thanks for that. Good looking job. I like the Rivnut® idea. Used them many times.
I'll have to check out the other links you've posted.

 

Whoa! Looks like it was cut out with a Hershey bar. I've seen worse though. That's the first thing I look for when I'm interested in buying one of these cars. I'll pop the hatch, pull back the carpet and if it's been cut, I walk away. I suppose, if I discovered a nice example like Tibo's above, I'd keep looking over the car some more, but I have never seen a nice example with the cars I've looked at in the past 15 years. I remember a few years ago looking at an 87 Trans Am and almost the entire thing was cut out with nothing but a piece of 1/4" plywood with foam house window a/c tape and carpet on top.

Advice? Personally, I would either replace that entire section of the car which would be a ton of work or part it out sadly.