Well, The 33’ Has never been this tore down! The more I dig, the Pandoras Box is opened! Its looking more like “Pandoras Condominium!” The Quarters are rusted all the way down through the Frame Rail! No room to pull the Body, so They m gonna use my cherry picker to lift up the back high enough to brace it with 4x4s to get to rot from both sides! Rear fenders need patch work and bracing too!
You do have a little bit of work ahead of you.. Looks like the build I have going.. Look at one thing and find another issue.. So much for a quick once over and be done ! The body on yours looks fairly good not the worst I have seen some fix, Be thankful you don't have to replace everything from the body line down.
So I have been pondering an attack on this rust for a few days now. I decided to do the minimalist approach. The Elephant one bite at a time theory, as not to get overwhelmed. Gonna replace the smallest sections one at a time, instead of cutting everything off. The floor, and sub rails are mostly good, so I’m gonna just cut small bubbled pieces out around the good areas. Fill with a patch as I go. Wherever I peel a-layer off, Ill neutralize the rust behind it. Its not like this car is ever gonna rust again in my lifetime. Not gonna be driving it in sleet, rain and snow, like they did back then.
For your little outlined rusty squares at the bottom edge of the wheelwell, don't cut just the marked area. Go all the way to the bottom of the edge. Then when you put in your patch you only have three sides to weld, and maybe a plug weld in the center of the new patch to replicate the spot welds that originally held the layers together. Also, cut the patches long and let them hang down. Easier to weld that little bottom edge of the new-to-old, and then you can grind hang down edge of the patch up perfectly to match the original shape on that bottom edge.
Not much work lately, but I made a cool Eyebolt bracket, bolted to the old upper spare tire bracing. Now I can lift the rear way high, and see whats going on underneath, that body! Soon as get all the rusty bolts that are hiding here and there, holding that frame!
Don't forget the ones inside the frame that go into nut plates in rocker, cowl and door post. They usually twist the nut in the nut plates, I found that out the hard way, Sent from my SM-G973U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I feel for you guys back there in the Salt belt! My wife and I used to be long haul truckers and hated that crap, turn everything white, couldn’t see out the windows, and I have to polish the aluminum wheels everything time we got back to regular sanded roads, or they start corroding. I used to dream up ways to be able to invent some sort of imbedded asphalt heaters so the roads would never freeze! And get rich! So I wouldn’t have to drive back there! Lol!
Had to cut 2 out of 4, came out 2/3 the way, and then the captured nuts started spinning. Not to bad, just have 2 of the carriage head ones I need to grind off the heads, then I can lift up the back of the body with the cherry picker, and see the real mess!
The Jalopy Journal
