One thing that you will have to remember is that its gonna take more money then you think it will and there are so many little parts that you forget about. I have been restoring mine for a while now and everytime we worked on it something was missing. another set of bolts or connectors or whatever. Mine is plain jane coupe and we didnt buy top of the line. Did a full restoration like you are doing except the floors and Ive got 32K in it. Still needing more parts. I got allot of stuff from NPD. They have a virtual catalog and their prices are about the lowest and quality in body panels is consistent.

Goodluck with all and yes bag up everything for you never know what you will be able to use till the reassemble and what you have to throw out. But you will need it all. And take lots of pics for it can really help someone else in the future.

 

JNO, Thanks for these comments, it has inspired me to take another look at this project. I had ran into an old body man a few days ago, after reading your post. He has done plenty of these, and as you, he is insisting that its not as hard as a person would think. These cars were assembled with spot welders. You drill out the spot welds, remove the panel, install the new panel, and weld the drilled holes. along with a bunch of grinding, prying, cussing and such

Would you agree?

 

Orocker, thanks for your comments as well. I have been reading your progress for several days now. All I can say, WOW

 

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. The fit of the re-pop floor was pretty good, so there wasn't too much of the prying and cussing, there was however, lots and lots of grinding to cut out the old floor, and getting the surface ready for welding. (with the rust I had, it was hard to see the spotwelds, so I just ground and chiseled out the old floor)

I am by far no expert, but I can say putting in the one piece floor was easier than welding the left and right side patch panels that I did on my Trans Am. (And it looks a LOT better) Butt welding in patch panels on thin sheetmetal is a PITA.

Good Luck

 

Progress! I was able to spend time on it this weekend, and tonight. The frame horns are in great shape!!

 

 

You have made more progress in a week than I have done in 6 months! Keep up the good work.

 

Awesome!

 

Rockers!!

As you may know, these rockers are solid steel reinforced rockers. My passenger side, the inside rocker is rusted away, and inside the rocker is surface rust. The driver side inside is the same way, and the outside needs replaced as well.

Replacing a complete rocker will require splitting the car in 2, which I do NOT want to do. Would it be okay to replace both inner rockers, and 1 outer rocker. Or am I thinking wrong?

 

Sorry. Joined the forum late. The car looks like my did six months ago. Your doing a good job. Try not to get too overwhelmed.

K