Hello everyone. After putting off this project long enough, I have finally begun tearing into my 68 coupe. Some of previous pictures and concerns can be seen through this link . In this thread, I would like to document everything I am doing as fully as possible for the benefit of the forum.
While I can spin a wrench and do passable welding, I have never done a car restoration before. If you have any suggestions or comments, fire away. If you want me to take any particular pictures at certain points in the restoration process, let me know and I will do my best to include them.
Supporting the Body: I do not have a rotisserie, nor the funds to buy or make one, so I thought of my own system to support the car off the ground. First, I placed the car up on jack stands, using the rear axle and the front subframe for temporary supports. I then made sawhorses out of 2x4s that run along the rocker panels on each side and lowered the car onto the sawhorses. The end result was this (picture taken after subframe was removed) I can comfortably fit under the car using a creeper. Meanwhile, the front subframe was supported by a hydraulic jack.
Removing the Subframe: First, I removed the drive shaft (removed 4 bolts at the rear diff, and it slid right out of the transmission). Then I removed the shifter. If I built the sawhorses higher, I suppose I could have left it on the trans, but I didn't have the clearance. There are 4 large bolts that attach the front subframe to the unibody. The nuts are captured in sheet metal cages. If you are unlucky, these sheet metal cages are rusty and will break, making the bolts impossible to undo. A suitably sized C-clamp does work well to keep the rectangular nuts in place. The drivers side rear bolt came out fine. The passenger rear bolt needed the clamp trick. The front bolts just crumbled apart, and 1 is still stuck in there, but at least the frame can still come off. I then lowered the subframe using my floor jack. Passenger front: Driver Front: Passenger Rear: Driver Rear:
SAFETY NOTICE: If you support the car like I did, the balance point (with the rear end still on) is almost exactly at the back of the rocker panels. I set a hammer in the trunk, and the whole thing started pivoting backwards. I threw a bunch of stuff in the front floor pans to temporarily balance the car while I dropped the rear end. This was simply a matter of removing the shocks and the rear shackles.
Removing the forward spring mounts has been a challenge. There are 3 bolts on each side holding a stamped mount to the body. 5 out of the 6 are spinning the inaccessable nuts. I will have to cut through the floors to get to them, but I am replacing the floors anyway. For the moment, the car is safely balanced with the rear resting on the ground, though it is not yet completely detached.
Floor Pans Part 1 (Passenger): My rear seat shelf and front seat pan is absolutely fine, but both front and rear footwells are rusted through and poorly repaired. The rust up front extends up the firewall, so a "full" floor will not cover the damage. I chose to use two half floors from NPD (C-12900-1A and C-12900-2A). These run from about a third of the way up the firewall to the beginning of the rear seat pan, so they are the perfect length for my floors. Doing one half at a time also allows me to use the opposite side for reference. I cut out the foot wells to do some exploring and find out how much metal needs to be replaced.
the shock mounts for the front of the leaf springs do not Have a nut behind the bolt... It is a Clip (J-Clip) If they are spinning then they should be able to pry out. try some or a lot of PB Blaster.
Salesguy01, the bolts were held in by J-Clips, but the nuts were detached from the stamped steel portion, so they needed to be held on the opposite side. I managed this by cutting an access hole in the pane beneath the floor pan. In the background, you see some Kano Kroil, my preferred penetrating oil. The stuff works wonders, and it even smells good. I recommend them above any other penetrating oil, but you can only get it through mail order. Using the thinnest cutoff wheels I could find, I cleaned up the cuts in my floors. The red paint lines show the new metal boundaries. I would cut, test fit, cut some more, and test fit until it was perfect. This took a long time to get right, and it helps to have a helper below to keep the pan from falling through. Welding magnets work pretty well too. When the fit was finally good, I gave the patch panels a coat of paint, as well as any metal I could get at in the car. Then I sanded the edges to prepare it for welding. The Rally II wheel in the background is part of a set that needs repainting. I can do another thread on that.
I welded the panels in using Hobart Handler 135 MIG unit. Voltage was set to "1" (not sure what units), using .023" solid core wire feeding at 10 ft/min, and C25 shield gas at 25 CFM (higher worked even better). I spot welded around the entire perimeter of the panel, jumping sides as frequently as possible to avoid heat buildup. When I got down to 1/2" gaps between the spots, I tried laying seams, but they kept burning through, so I kept going with the spot welds until the end, and cleaned up with a grinder.
Driver Rear Section: A shop light under the car helped find pin holes that I missed while welding. The red circles mark them for welding later.
The driver side front floor pan is in the worst shape of them all, and the torque box underneath is just as bad. I am cutting out the bad parts and making new patches out of floor panel scraps. Extra shaping is done with a hammer and sandbag. I got as far as the picture shows before I noticed that the subframe mount on the torque box looks compromised. I am unsure what to do from here. It looks like a simple patch job, but it is also an important structural member. Any advice would be appreciated here. The bottom of the unibody beneath the front fenders has also rusted out. I found a half of a 68 Firebird (literally cut in half with a sawzall from the top of the windshield forward) that may be suitable for patch panels.
