Floor it

Minor surgery, amateur surgeon

I ordered the sheet metal for the floor almost a year ago. I knew the floors needed new sheetmetal, and at some basic level I understood what had to happen, but only today did I actually start the project. Of course we removed the interior a while back, removed the mouse nesting, and neutralized the smell inside, but the real undertaking is removing or repairing the rust. I'm excited and anxious about this undertaking, mainly because I have learned a lot about sheetmetal work- I mean I know a lot in theory, but still haven't completed something like this. I just need to bear down and start. I may or may not have distracted myself with the engine build just to push this job out a bit. No hiding from it now! Today I got down to the "real" job.

"OK WELL THERE'S YER PROBLEM"

Since I have new seat pedestals on hand, I started by removing one of the old ones on the driver's side. I have a spot weld cutting kit and an air chisel, but wasn't sure which technique would work the best in removing that piece. I figured I'd try both to see how well it would go. Seemed a decent place to start since I didn't need to be dainty, or try to save the piece I was removing for reuse. After some experimenting, my best answer was "both"- the best technique I found was to grind out the spot weld, and then break the seam with the air chisel. With some effort, the pedestal finally loosened and I could remove it to inspect the floor underneath.

All that rust on the floor was vibrated loose while working (!)

While working, I noticed a steady raining of rust scale from the bottom of the car. Glad I decided to replace the platforms, looks like there was no rust treatment between the original floor and the pedestal. This area is  normally permanently closed up, can trap moisture, and has no practical way of treating or cleaning it short of doing what I just did in removing the box. Illinois winters strike again! This will be fine once I treat the metal (using POR 15) we're keeping, weld in new metal and give it all some paint, seam sealer, and undercoating.

Next: let's see if I can remove all the bad metal on the driver's side, treat the frame boxes and remaining surface rust, cut the new metal to fit, and weld in place.

More Pictures

 

New sheet metal floors, ready to go, right and left sides

Grinding out spot welds

I decided to remove the front bumper too, because distractions!

Quadraphonic Time Machine

I sometimes get parts 36 years in advance. Naw that's normal for me.

I hit the pause button for the last couple weeks to work on the house- it was supposed to be a 2-day project, but with my house that can quickly spin into a 2-week or even 2-month odyssey, but that's a different set of stories for a different blog. So I was also doing some rearranging, reorganizing, and moving to improve the ease-of-use factors in my workspaces, because that's something that can get out of hand in a hurry if you don't stay on top of shit.

My effort ancillarily produced this fine, fine, damn-near-new Pioneer 8-track car stereo with volume to "11". Not only is it nostalgia-neat, but there's a story that goes with it that I wanted to share.

When I was 11 or thereabouts, my Mom was cleaning out the attic at our house in Lombard, I was helping. Well, I was helping the way I usually do in those sorts of situations: I was supposed to be moving boxes out, but there was so much neat stuff that I couldn't help opening every box and twiddling with everything. In one box, I pulled out a Pioneer 8-track car stereo, still in the box. At the time, I actually had some 8-tracks in my room since Mom had given me a Sears stereo for Christmas which came complete with an 8-track player (with deluxe auto-reverse!). Since I was certain this technology would quake the future of music playback as we knew it, I went right to town buying up 8-tracks, AC/DC, Rush, Boston, Yes. "We should install this in the car!", I yelled down the stairs. Mom paused to focus on my outstretched hand and said, "What? Oh, no, that was your uncle's I think. Just put that thing downstairs with everything else. You don't want that." But I totally did. I tried to prevail. "Can I keep it? I'll install it my car someday if you don't want it." After much cajoling, just to keep me from losing focus all afternoon she shot out a compromise, "You can have that player if you stop rooting through everything so we can finish, ok?" Deal-e-o!  Being 11, I put it in a box with other treasures, and kind of forgot about it. By the time I was cruising the streets of Lombard, I rationalized since I had 4 cases full of casette tapes and only ten 8-tracks, even neat as I still thought it was, it made no sense to go to the trouble. Plus, my badass 1980 Cutlass was way too modern for such anachronistic weirdness. But I still packed it away again carefully with other mementos. When Mom sold the house on Maple street in 2003, she brought me some of my old things, including the treasure box. I put it in my attic. I moved in 2010 and put the box in storage. Last week I was trying to clean out storage but still mostly rummaging through and farting around with stuff that had faded from memory, now brand new. I found it, still waiting to be installed by an 11-year-old, in a pile of poorly labeled, slightly musty mystery boxes. When I pulled it out to behold it, still shiny, 5-pin DIN plug ready to interface, I knew exactly what needed to happen. It'll look and sound perfect in the Mustang. See Mom? Told you! Just takes some time.