Stock Car Mafia Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 Great looking build so far! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 (edited) Thanks! Made a little progress this weekend. Replaced a section of the front passenger side frame rail and welded it back in. Next step is to weld in the lower frame rail directly under the one pictured here. Edited December 7, 2015 by jkelly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 Almost forgot about the freshly POR15 painted front suspension. I still have to pull the springs and paint the struts, and do the entire rear suspension. I usually alternate between sheet metal repair and suspension. When the metal repair gets to be too frustrating I switch to something easy like shooting paint and making things pretty! Can't wait to get this baby on the road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted December 13, 2015 Author Share Posted December 13, 2015 (edited) Welded in the bottom of the front passenger frame rail. Sprayed POR15 into the front frame rail too. I also trimmed the inner fender patch I made a while ago and put a bend in it to mate with the rest of the panel. Also ordered two floor pans from Charlie at Zedd Findings. Test fit of trimmed inner fender. Lower frame rail. Lower frame rail. Undercoating gun and wand I use to spray metal ready and POR15. Inside frame rail before. Not that bad looking. After I'm going to also spray some 3M cavity wax in there for extra protection against the rust monster. Edited December 13, 2015 by jkelly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 (edited) Make some more rust repair progress today. I seam sealed the front frame rail and sprayed 3M Rust Fighter cavity wax on top of the POR15 inside the frame rail. Also welded in the inner fender patch panel and closed out the frame rail. Cavity wax inside the frame rail. This stuff is a lot thicker than I thought it would be. Seam sealer applied and ready to go. I'm using 3M 08360. For the inner fender patch, I wanted a tighter fit where it meets the firewall, so I modified it -- chopped off the rounded end and made a wedge shape and welded the two pieces together. Drilled spot weld holes in the patch. Coated the backside with Upol weld through primer. Clamped in place and ready to weld. Welded in and semi-smoothed welds. Went ahead and shot some rattle can on it. I'm about to go home for Christmas and won't be able to work on it for a couple of weeks. I still have some areas to smooth out, but I'm pretty happy with the repairs, I think. Looking forward to getting the floor pans in now! Edited December 14, 2015 by jkelly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted December 15, 2015 Author Share Posted December 15, 2015 So I was checking out the interior this evening and opened the two storage hatches behind the seats and found a few artifacts of a good time had many moons ago. Also came with original manuals. And original jacking equipment. Does anyone know if the chocks are original? In the glove box was DMV registration records back to the mid 70's. Pretty cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted April 8, 2016 Author Share Posted April 8, 2016 It's been a while, but I've finally started on the floor pans. Trying to knock out the passenger side first, as it was the worst. I ordered two Zedd Findings floor pans and from all of the reading I've done I expected to have to do some modifications to the floor pans for them to fit properly, especially on the inboard sides to match up with the transmission tunnel. I'm a little surprised at how poorly they fit on the outboard side though and am curious what you guys have done, or if you've had the same experience. See the two attached pictures for an example. The first picture shows the rear outboard corner bottom side. The bend in the floor pan is pretty far off from the bend in the original metal, when the floor pan is centered. I suppose it may match up better after everything is clecoed down, but I'm curious if you guys have had the same experience with these floor pans? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted April 8, 2016 Author Share Posted April 8, 2016 Update: I've been working the floor pans and surrounding metal for a few hours and it fits better. Still not there yet and still seems like the pans should fit better. I'm guessing he makes them from original or replica dies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disepyon Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 I bought the same floor pans and I too figured out that they dont fit well. I am still debating on making my own or spending the time to make them fit. Please update on this, I would like to see how your progress and feed back. Killer work by the way, Im impressed seeing that you dont have any specialty tools to make the things your making. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted April 13, 2016 Author Share Posted April 13, 2016 I ended up going for it with these floor pans. I'll take some pictures when I get home today, but I hammered the bent inboard edge flat, tried my best to trace the curvature of the transmission tunnel on to the floor pan, and used a bossing mallet and panelbeater sand bag to slowly beat the new bend into the floor pan. I haven't worked a whole lot on the front and rear edge of the floor pan, but I've got it kind of close between hammering on it and hammering on the existing car metal. I'll keep you updated. Thanks! It's amazing what you can use from the crap you have just lying around the garage. I've been using my cutting torch gas cylinder caps and trailer hitch balls as vise mounted hammering stakes to form curves. I was looking at your thread just yesterday, now that's some killer work! Looking great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted April 15, 2016 Author Share Posted April 15, 2016 So here's where the passenger side floor pan is at right now. Still a good bit of tweaking to do but the basic shape is there. I'll need to add a little material to the inboard edge too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted July 6, 2016 Author Share Posted July 6, 2016 I haven't worked on the car in a while but made a little progress on the passenger side floor pan this past weekend. Started shaping the transmission tunnel curve of the floor pan and did some more shaping on the front and rear ends of the pan. Also clecoed the pan in several places. I still need to add some metal to the transmission tunnel edge and replace and patch a few other spots near the rear end of the pan. Then it will be ready to weld in. Picture of floorpan progress. I really wanted to get you guys' opinion on some pitted metal and if I should cut it out or not. You guys gave some good advice a while back on this same subject but it was hard to see the extent of the pitting. I've taken the wire brush wheel to these sections so you can see the extent of the pitting. Should I cut out/weld in, or just treat these? Thanks guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rturbo 930 Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 The rust in pic 1 looks pretty minor. The rest I would likely cut and weld. Looks like you could punch through it with a screwdriver. Where are these areas located on the car? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted July 6, 2016 Author Share Posted July 6, 2016 The first three pics are located on the transmission tunnel edge where I'm going to butt weld the floor pan to. The last picture is located behind the rear seat brackets where the floor pan lap welds in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted July 25, 2016 Author Share Posted July 25, 2016 (edited) Finally got the passenger side floor pan welded in. Rusty piece behind the seat Fabricated a new piece for behind the seat. Test fitting it Old floor pan Floor pan clecoed in and almost ready to weld Welded in I've started working on the driver side now. Only a few small spots failed the screwdriver stabbing test, so I'm only going to replace those small sections. I also ordered some Bad Dog frame rail extenders or whatever they're called. I'm going to fabricate the sections under the floor pans myself. Edited July 25, 2016 by jkelly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 That's the nicest floor replacement I've ever seen! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted July 26, 2016 Author Share Posted July 26, 2016 That's the nicest floor replacement I've ever seen! What a compliment! Thanks a bunch. I probably took twice as long as most people. I'm just glad the driver side isn't going to require a full pan replacement. I still need to replace the dreaded battery box area and I'll have the major rust/rot taken care of. Woohoo! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rturbo 930 Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 Must feel good to have that out of the way. I'm not looking forward to doing my floors. Gonna be doing 240z floors and frame rails in a 280z. Deleting the trans tunnel hump. Way more work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkelly Posted July 26, 2016 Author Share Posted July 26, 2016 Must feel good to have that out of the way. I'm not looking forward to doing my floors. Gonna be doing 240z floors and frame rails in a 280z. Deleting the trans tunnel hump. Way more work. Feels great. Still need to weld a few stretches on the bottom side of it, but essentially done. Why the 240z floors and rails in a 280? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rturbo 930 Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 240z floors are really simple compared to that of a 280z. Much easier to put the new rails on, since the 280z baddog rails don't have a flange, which means you have to make one. Also easier to do custom seat mounts, again because the floors are flat. My floors aren't in great shape, so I figured I may as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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