After a job layoff, finally a new job, and now, a little free time, I can finally get back into my beloved rust-bucket '63 chevy fleetside. With the extra stress from the job situation behind me, I figured, "What better way to reaquaint myself with her than to cut her open and repair some of the never-ending rust?" ...and that's exactly what I did. First, the extraction. As you can see, didn't take too much work...nature took care of that for me... Strange thing I'm finding out about this part of the job is that once you finally cut out all of the cancer and you now have clean metal to work with, you feel a weight off your shoulder, like all is new again... As I found with the passenger side, since the aftermarket floor supports didn't seem to fit very well, I will again tack the floor in first and make the floor supports fit the new floors. I won't bore you with the steps of cleaning off the exposed frame and floor support and sealing them with paint, but now I finally have a solid floorboard on the driver side. Whew! Next, I scavenged some 18ga. shelves someone was throwing away at work to make the kick panels. Yeah, kinda ghetto, but they worked and best of all, were free! Still gotta finish weld in all the panels, but man, what a feeling having solid metal in this rusty jalopy. It's been a long time coming. Now I gotta start on the rear of the floor...home stretch!! I'll have her back on the road in no time!
The Jalopy Journal
