My '83 GLX T-Top Coupe Junk Yard Find

[Grabber70Mach]

......

[Davedacarpainter]

Sorry for nothing to show for the past couple of nights, work has been very busy and I get home just too worn out.

Today doesn't look as hard, so hopefully tonight I'll have some progress for you.

[Davedacarpainter]

K, I've got stuff to show.

I starterted with lifting the floorpan up and cleaning the weld thru primer off all the areas I will weld.
Then I put the pan back down and bolted it on to the sfc's seat brace and began welding! One down, 203 to go!

Passenger side done, 51 down, 153 to go. You may notice some welds are a little more expansive than the others? The holes on the passenger side may have not been quite as completely accurate as the driver's side

Then I went to the driver's side and welded up the subframe and a little of the firewall, 53 more, 100 to go!

And then because I was really enjoying myself, I welded another ten in the driver's rear corner.

If you've ever MIG welded, you know you don't want much air movement around you to maintain the blanket. Which makes for a really freaking hot garage in the summertime!

The last 90 welds will take a little bit of time since this is where the fitment issues really will come into play. Regardless, tomorrow night I should finish welding the floorpan in.

Then we start the homebrew ladder system! This 1x1 square tubing I have is THICK! I'll have to grind the outer surface to make it useable. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have something good to show y'all on the system.

Oh yeah, I also have the front seat crossmember to weld in too. That shouldn't be much more than a gazillion more spotwelds

That's it for tonight fellas, time to cool off and beer.

[erratic50]

Nice job, that’s awesome.

Trey - the questions are
1) will I get an invite to this here floor pan party

2) will my 85 Saleen clone be my ride down.....

Lol

[wraithracing]

Looking Good!

Nice job, that’s awesome.

Trey - the questions are
1) will I get an invite to this here floor pan party

2) will my 85 Saleen clone be my ride down.....

Lol

1) NO! The Floor pan party has been cancelled due to unreasonable requests by certain guests!

2) No Idea as I believe the short block is on Intergalactic Back Order!

[Davedacarpainter]

Ok guys, work wore me out yesterday so once I got home I didn’t do anything.

I made a run to the store for some welding consumables this morning

I’ll be back after it in a few minutes now.

[Davedacarpainter]

Alright, I drank a couple gatorades and went to work. It's stinking hot and humid today, with no wind......which is good for welding I suppose.....

I welded the left rocker first. I used a jack to hold the floor in position and measured 3/4" up from the rocker seam and started welding. I welded about every third weld since I wanted to measure the whole way down the rocker. It's nice and even. I also welded up to the rear trans tunnel.

Next thing up was the right side where the rear floorpan meets the front. It was a little bit of a pain because of some heavier pitting, I almost considered putting in a patch panel there, but the holes all ground down to shiny metal, so I went with it.

Then I got after the right rocker. I knew this side would be a bit more of a pain since the inner rocker metal is pretty wavey. Beating, measuring, a little more beating, a little more measuring and a bunch more welds. Towards the end of it I was able to crawl in on the floorpan to finish the welds. Yay!

At this stage I had to take a break, I was sweating buckets. I had to change shirts and I've had another couple gatorades, I think I'm good to go now.

Except for one little problem, I'm almost out of argon. Maybe the god of argon will allow me about another twenty welds.

I need to crawl underneath and shape the rear of the trans tunnel a little bit. It's looks like it'll be fairly easy. The front of the trans tunnel will take a little extra though.

[flyin5-o]

Nice work! Excellent choice of consumables BTW

Just wondering, how come you didn't glue the floor pan in on the rail and front and rear and just weld on the rockers?

[Davedacarpainter]

Nice work! Excellent choice of consumables BTW

Just wondering, how come you didn't glue the floor pan in on the rail and front and rear and just weld on the rockers?

Not to give you a stupid simpleton answer, but, because that's the way it was before. Lol. I'm a big believer in panel bonding adhesive too. Sooooooo, idk maybe?

[Davedacarpainter]

Speaking of trans tunnels.....

I started with the rear section, it took a little friendly persuasion, but it saw things my way in the end.

Then I got after the front. The left side of the panel did not want to match up to the firewall tunnel area. It was beyond a good beating (who isn't these days).

I took my die grinder with a cut off wheel and made a slice at the top and bottom of the bulging area. I was hoping this would be enough, but the two areas needed additional grinding to make the ends match up once the spot welds were in. So I used my grinder and widened the cuts. This worked like a champ.

I ran out of argon with about five spotwelds to go, hence the dirty nasty ugly welds in the immediate area. Once those two ends met up nicely, I finished by welding the two slices back up. I then ground it down just because it was so ugly it made me pee myself a little. Argon is important in MIG welding.

So, tomorrow, since I can't weld, I'm going to dress the ugly welds (there's a couple!) and the ones in the way of the seat brace. Which, btw, fits very nice.

I'll go ahead and drill my welding holes in the seat brace too. Then I'll clean up the pan and coat it with POR15, both the top and bottom.

I want to do this to be sure it's covered where the seat brace goes and for those areas underneath i won't be able to get to once I make the ladder system. I'll try to get the 1x1 tubing ground down tomorrow if I have the time.

[85MUSTANGTGT]

Floor pan looks great, Dave. You sure make this stuff look easy.

This heat definitely sucks. I have absolutely NO desire to work in the garage today. Will be glad for the next couple weeks to pass and start getting some fall weather.

[wraithracing]

Making quick work of the floor pan! Really looking good!

I will second the heat SUCKS!!! I worked out at the shop trying to wrap up several loose ends and finally said screw it at 2 pm as it was already 100 degrees. Definitely missing Colorado right now!

[SECESH]

I think hay balers have thermostats on them; they seem to break down only when it's really hot.
Working in a sheet steel box inside a garage with an arc melting steel. Should come out nicely basted like an oven stuffer roaster.
I got the baler parked in the shade, but we just wrung the vice screw off crimping belt lacings.
Wish I could work on a Mustang instead

[Davedacarpainter]

I tell you, I have mental issues.

I was going to start the day just dressing the welds in the area where the seat brace would go and not worry about the rest of them since they will eventually have Dynamat and carpeting covering them......maybe 10-15 welds......Then I thought, "well, I should go over those along the rockers real quick".

While getting those I figured I better get those uglier welds, I mean what if someone were ever to pull up my carpet and dynamat and see those ugly welds.

So I got those dressed, and you know what? The ones next to those ugly welds were a little high......

In the end I did leave some just as they were fresh from welding, maybe 20-30......I weep for myself sometimes.

[2nd chance cobra]

I get it dave, I spent a lot of time on mine (and everything else) that you would never see unless.... well, no one will ever see it. Wasted time for sure, but I felt better. I think they call it ocd

[Davedacarpainter]

I get it dave, I spent a lot of time on mine (and everything else) that you would never see unless.... well, no one will ever see it. Wasted time for sure, but I felt better. I think they call it ocd

That's CDO if your truely obsessive Shane!

I broke out my little compressor and 3" DA with some 80 grit and sanded down the rockers and the lower part of the firewall where it meets up to the floorpan. Then I took some red scotchbrites and scuffed everything else to include the floorpan. I blew out the dust and wiped it all down with wax and grease remover.

Then got the POR15 ready to spread. I used a 4" roller and the cheapest paint brush I could buy and went to town coating the whole thing.

Tomorrow I'll stop by one of our local welding supplies and get a new canister of argon so I can get after the seat brace.

Of course I will be doing some seam sealing here in the next few days as well. I wanted the POR15 on first.

[erratic50]

That looks AWESOME! Not a finer job done on a fox floor pan install Dave. They are a real PITA. Lord knows way too much time will get spent on my 86 when the time comes. Rusty old fox......

[SECESH]

Dressing the welds will be benificial since there won't be any proud spots where the coating would tend to be thinner and maybe wear through. Belt and suspenders; never can be too careful.

[kfxmatt]

nice work! looks great

[jlehma13]

Looks incredible!

[wannabe82]

Looks great, you’re doing an awesome job !!

[Davedacarpainter]

Thanks guys.

Fatigue blowout again for me. I'm pooped. Work has been crazy.

I did get more argon on monday though. Maybe tomorrow night I'll get after the crossbrace.

I've got a three day weekend coming that begs for a lot of stuff to get done.

[JTurbo]

Been a while since I checked in on this thread, great progress.

[Davedacarpainter]

I had to dig out these today.

I bought these about two years ago for the long awaited day that I would need them. They're seat crossmember studs for those not sure what they are.

I'm watching my OU Sooners right now, so nothing else truly exists.

In a little bit though, I'll get my seats back in Booger for the first time in awhile to make sure the crossbrace get welded in the right place.

[ZephyrEFI]

Man, you'll have just about a brand new car before you're done!

Where did you get those seat studs? I'm going to need longer ones at some point.