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Were you able to fix it going in through the wheel opening without the liner in place? Were you able to find a patch panel for it or did you have to fab one?
Thanks, I was afraid of that.. The 92 is my snow car and since it is winter (Washington State) I will have to drive it until summer before major teardown. I will pull the front wheel off and the plastic wheelhouse out to see if I can fiberglass patch it until summer. I have fiberglass cloth and resin (boat restoration in progress) so that seems the easiest for now. A fiberglass patch might give me a form to use to fab metal when I pull it completely apart.
Not surprised I have some rust out there. I have been driving it daily since 93 and it has 480,000 miles on it, can't give up on it now....
Am I having fun yet? So, I started on the passenger side first. No way to do the repair without stripping the car down. Engine and transmission are out and I pulled out the interior including the dash. Even with this level of disassembly it is major work. I have the rusted out metal removed and in the process of cutting patch panels from a donor front end. Therefore, I get to do disassembly twice. Going to have a lot of welds to do.
Passenger floor area.
Engine bay. Yup, the inner wheel well had to come out. Upper fender rail and radiator core support removed also.
Lower door pillar with the inner kick panel metal also removed. Both were rusted badly (hole through them).
Looks good. It's a ton of work. I can offer a few friendly comments from personal experience:
-Suggest drilling out the spot welds where the floorboard meets the inner rocker panel and plug welding the new floorpan there. It will be a cleaner final product.
-For the butt welds on the floorboards, stitch weld both sides (top and bottom) and then if you want to conceal the bottom side, grind the weld flush and use a little bit of body filler. Leave the top side weld intact for strength.
-You have a lot of the front end taken apart. I would be concerned about the right side frame rail moving out of position. Adding temporary bracing before removing the shock tower and core support would have been preferrable, but that's OK. I would get the GM body measurements (They are here on Thirdgen, just do a search) and make sure to take measurements and align the whole front clip as neccessary as you are putting it back together.
-Get all of this back together before tackling the left side. Only remove as much metal as needed to get that section of the car done to avoid losing structural integrity and "tweaking" the body. Looks like you have subframe connectors, so that's a big help here.
Yeah, it is a ton of work. I had bent the right front corner and the upper fender rail so had that straightened on a frame machine before working on the rust. I did put the front impact bumper frame back on before cutting out the firewall to keep it stable. The passenger's side frame rail seems to be solidly held in place compared to the driver's side frame rail by the impact bumper, cross member and the subframe connectors. I forgot to brace the upper firewall against the main frame rail before cutting out the door post. As I have been trimming the patch pieces, it appears that the body corner is sagging a bit (about 3/4 inches) relative to the top of the frame rail. I put a jack under the rocker panel and can bring it back up to get the correct spacing (17 1/4 inches) between the upper firewall edge and the top of the frame rail. I will weld in the inside kick panel metal patch piece and then jack it up to weld the front of that to the outer floor support.
I plan to do the passenger's side first, reinstall the core support then do the driver's side toe board. I don't think the inner wheel liner needs to come off on the driver's side. Hoping I don't have to do anything with it or at least only a little rust repair where it connects to the firewall.
you are doing a great job! rust is always a fun job!
i really know you pain and struggle... about 10 years ago my son, friend, and i rebuilt my first 88 sport coupe i bought in 1988 and refound in 2012 in a salvage yard... needless to say it was a major rust bucket by that point and your pics remind me of that project journey!
Nice job on your restoration. My work on the passenger side is now at the point of cleaning, treating and painting metal then welding in all the patch pieces. I have learned a lot about drilling and cutting spot welds getting donor panels off. I just haven't had that much luck with the spot weld drills. I find that using the spot weld drill through one layer of the two pieces of metal and then grinding the top panel away with a 1/2 inch 36 grit belt sander works best for me. I am not a fan of the panel splitter used on just a spot weld drilled with the round drills. The splitter only works if you have most of the spot weld ground off otherwise you end up tearing metal on one of the panels (usually the thinner of the two) by trying to split the weld.
I took a bit of a break the last 3 to 4 days for my sanity of deciding to restore mine. Back to it after T Day...
you are right, you learn a lot about spot welds doing these types of jobs... i ended up finding for certain portions depending on metal thickness different techniques worked better. i was able to effectively use the spot weld drills and splitters on thicker guage areas pretty easily but the thinner areas were more challenging for sure
Agreed on the challenge of drilling the spot welds. If you're not keeping the sheet metal behind, then just use a regular drill bit and blow through both pieces. If you are trying to keep the metal behind, then the spot weld bit is the better option. It takes longer, but then you don't need to repair all of the holes. A few tips for using the spot weld bits:
-Drill at a slow speed. High speed just heats up the bit and dulls it
-Sharpen the bit with a small file often. About every 20-30 spot welds
-Pre drilling the center of the spot weld with a small drill bit can sometimes help. It will center the point of the spot weld bit and often the center point of the spot weld bit doesn't want to cut through without a pilot hole, so the small hole lets the cutting surface of the bit contact the weld. Then, filling the small hole in the substrate metal with a weld and grinding it flush is pretty easy.
Been delayed on getting back to work due to a very severe calf muscle tear. Back working on it with a limp. Anyway, I got a long 3 inch round plastic brush and ran it in and out of the inside of the rocker. I got a fair bit of rust scale out of it mostly from the inside reinforcing plate/mount for the seat belt bolts. That plate is pretty thick so no need to replace it, just need to get it protected. The rocker itself (except the front end where I am repairing it from door pillar back about 6 inches) looks in good shape with a little bit of small spots here an there that are surface rust (very small spots). I think the small spots would be fine with cavity wax since the factory coating is pretty tough but I would like to do something more on the reinforcing plate.
I thought about using a long extension with a swab soaked in POR 15 and running down the inside of the rocker. But since I can't sand the factory protective coating, I am afraid the POR 15 will just flake off inside. I guess I could cut an access hole in the top of the rocker just above the reinforcing plate and just POR 15 the plate but don't want to weaken the rockter in the middle of the body. Lastly, I could try to find a wire brush to run up in there with the idea it will scratch the factory coating (like sanding) but I really don't want to disrupt the factory rust protection. I also have DP90 available.
I had the same scenario on mine. With the front of the rocker cut open and before welding in the new metal, I flushed out the rocker cavity with clean water and let it dry out.
After welding the front rockers corners back together with new metal, I treated the inside of the rocker with Eastwood inner frame coating.
I drilled holes into the inner rocker panel above the floor pan (will be hidden by the carpet and door sill molding. Also one hole in the front of the rocker corner (the new sheet metal piece). Plugged the holes with rubber body plugs (can get from Eastwood) and then covered the body plugs with seam sealer.
i did all of the body/frame cavities with the eastwood inner frame coating.
Thanks for the info. I was thinking about running the brush in and out of the rocker with some soapy water and the rinse with clean water but that would be too much water inside the shop so maybe just a clean water rinse. Anyway, the internal frame coating looks like the route to go since it has the long nozzle to reach down the rocker. How does the internal frame coating compare to DP90? Although I don't know how I would get the DP90 down the rocker.
i have used the Eastwood internal coating as well on my 88 Sport Coupe rebuild. It flows really well as it is very thin... i had it running out of all the open seams, etc so be prepared that it will be a little messy!
Yes, it is a little messy and it does leak out of the seams. Put down a dropcloth if you don't want it on your garage floor. It used to be green in color. Much better now that it's black.
I got my old sandblaster cabinet running again with a dust collector attached. Also, got a couple of bright LED strip lights for it. I sandblasted the patch panel for the inside front of the rocker panel and the inner kick panel metal. Got it painted with DP90 and was going to weld it in so I can get the inside of the rocker coated but going to have to put the project on hold for a couple of weeks I think. I severely tore my calf muscle and it is too bad to be on it too much working on the car. Will follow up on the project here when I can get back to it.
12-05-2022, 08:40 PM
