Papabohnert

Sourcing an early shell appears to be a fairly difficult procedure. I suppose I could make any 240 work with enough cutting and welding, but this appreciation in value doesn't help my cause.

Burned out the lead line on the drivers b pillar and found most of the metal around that weld to be rusted away. This combined with the fact that nearly every other panel on the car is rusted, leads me on the search for another 1970 shell minus rust.

I'll probably end up picking up a set of floors and rails. I have rust under the drip rail behind the lead line, where the drip rail is tacked on above the quarter window. I'll attach pictures soon. It is a numbers matching car. I'll likely restore this car back to stock and maybe pick up a 280 to "modify" further down the line. Thanks for the links to the roof swap threads.

I finally got the parts car and y'all were right, the floors definitely aren;t going to work. I was hoping to avoid buying floors because the parts car cost about the same as floors and frame rails. How about the frame rail behind the t/c rod mount? The mount on the 280 looks beefier than the 240, but the frame looks nearly identical otherwise. Would I have any problem pulling from the 280 to put on the 240? What is y'all's opinions on the roof rust? Would it be easier to replace the skin than stitch in pieces and repair the the drip rails? I've got rust underneath the drip rails as well. The lead line on the b pillar is the logical place to cut the skin on the back, but where on the front? Thanks for the replies!

First off, I'm a student at McPherson College doing the Auto Restoration major. I picked up this Z in the Texas Hill Country where I'm originally from in exchange for a '47 Chevy coupe. I knew there was rust going into it, but now I've stripped the shell and I've got rust in practically every place I could have it. It's approaching too far gone, but I'm tackling it anyway. There's a completely rust free 280 body I'm going to pick up for patch panels that has been wrecked in the front end. My question is how much of the 280 can I graft onto the 240 without being a detriment to such an early car? Is it blasphemous to use the longer frame rails under the floor? Will that add enough stiffness to justify doing it as opposed to fabricating early style frame rails? I've heard the trans tunnel has a different shape on 280s, so perhaps the floors won't fit at all. Even that isn't so easy because my inner rockers are rusted where they meet the floors as well. How about the stacked boxes of the frame behind the t/c rod mount? I'm not after a custom job, but a mostly stock finished product capable of being a daily. I intend it to be more of a personal car than a flip, but I am interested in having a 240 when it's done and not a total frankencar. Any advice on how to approach the rust would be much appreciated.