I guess I need to have a sense of humor with some of this stuff or I might start crying… progress has been slow, as someone told me this is like chapters of a book I need to keep reading and that is was will get me motivated… well it worked and the evil villain rust has come back with a vengeance… or was it more like lying in wait?
Either way, I have added some bracing, once again more good advice from a friend, and removed the crossmember.
I originally started out trying to remove the crossmember in one piece, then had the thought this thing is going in the bin why bother? I feel the bracing is sufficient, I am able to lift the shell holding the bars so I think the shell won’t twist… I really don’t plan on removing a lot all at once…. key word there is plan, I didn’t plan on bracing at all and boy am I glad I did. I knew there were some holes under the crossmember, pretty much the only reason it was removed, its the surprise under the outer sills I wasn’t expecting. Before we get into the photos, I had an expectation that the inner sills would need some repairs… I am now considering getting complete inner sills and replacing the whole thing, this is of course if I can find panels corona virus has been making it hell to get metal for this thing. So here is what I found….
The inner sill pushed in when I was prying off the rest of the outer sill… que swear words… 
The LH side I am pretty confident I could make up some repair panels and call it a day, this may be the direction I go with it. The RH side has been previously repaired but it doesn’t look like there was any kind of primer put on the inside layer.
The one part that is still a head scratcher for me is why is the right side so much more rotten than the left, not just the sills but it seems almost all of the bigger repairs have to be done/have been done on this side of the car. I can see signs that the car previously had an oversill at least on this side, this is the only thing I can guess might have contributed to the extra rust/rot. either way it will all be cut out and fixed.
So now I have to buy more panels and the waiting game will begin, I am running out of things I can do with what I currently have which sucks because I have a furlough week coming up and the plan was to work on the car as much as possible. The one thought I have is to buy a new seat belt anchor for the LH side, I can then work to repair the inner sill, and the heel board on that side and possibly start on the A post, if I make my own inner sill repair I could essentially button up the LH side, being realistic this might not happen in a week but it will keep me moving forward.
The RH side I feel will need a full inner sill, I could treat the rust with a converter and replace the really rotten stuff but the floor also needs a repair past the first flute, which is why I feel a repair panel on this side might just make life a little easier… I also have to replace the companion box on this side so it will already be coming out the LH side is luckily solid where the box mounts so I can work around this.
Guess that is all for now, hopefully the next update is some sexy freshly primed metal… actually thats pretty much what it will be because that is next up, making some repairs, oh and a heel board subframe mount jig, seeing both sides need to be replaced, thankfully they are solid enough to use for alignment of each other.
The Rust chronicles 