....I've cut along a line below the upper flange. With the lower welds drilled off, the outer sill was easily removed. I also drilled 3/8 inch holes at 1 inch spacing where the plug welds will go.
I de-rusted it with wire a wheel, straightened it locally and etch primered it. It's all ready to go back on....
I've countersunk at each hole so that I have better access with the tip of the mig welder and also so that there is less thickness variation (for the weld) between the floor and the inner sill...this will hopefully make for easier and better welds.
Finally finished off repairing the lower corners on the rear kick panel (cross member)..
The seat mounting point reinforcing doublers and the inner seat belt attachment point were not provided with these panels, I'll have to add these in next (before welding the panels in for good).
...and more pre-fitting....checking for contour mismatches and pre-drilling holes for welding plugs.
Pre-fitting the cross piece floor support which I still need to do a final bead blasting on to remove some light rust....I can hardly wait to weld these in for good....but I'll have to.
Hats off to you bro! Very good detail work in your restoration. This thread is very inspiring indeed. I hope to acquire this type of skill with the restoration of my Alfa's. I had a 74 GTV (French Blue) that got crunched in a rear end collision so seeing your car brings back many fond memories of my old Alfa GTV.
I can't wait to see the finished product. Keep it coming mate.
Lowmilage: I plan on using the cavity wax for sure...but after I've have all the welding finished.
Peter/ecuadude/mfroble:...thanks for the nice replies gents, I expect to keep my current steady pace going throughout the summer...and to keep regular updates coming...(humm...I hope the AlfaBB can cope with all these photos though)
This past weekend I managed to get some more work completed. Started by reclaiming the seat mounting bracket which luckily was pretty free of corrosion, but did require some slight reforming so that it matched the new pan's contour.
...followed by my usual hole treatment for the plug welds...
So here's my reason for changing the seat mounting bolts out. On the driver side floor pan there are 3 nuts that are visible, but only 2 came with the reproduction panels. Since I don't like seeing different nut styles...I removed the 2 rear nuts that came with the panels and replaced them with the original ones....luckily these also had very little rust on them and cleaned up very easily.
Hey man, if you're ever out West here in Lotus Land, would you mind if you gave me a tutorial in restoration techniques? Your project is looking superb! It's obvious you know what you're doing.
A good friend of mine is coming over this weekend to weld a few floor pieces into my '74 and he's going to teach me how to mig weld. Oh yeah,in one easy lesson but I'm a quick learner I was talking to him last night at Happy Hour and he said Sat. morning so I'd better hold off the Appleton's and Coke 'till Sunday heh heh heh
The original reinforcing used a thinner material (which at about .080-.090 inch thick just seemed to be a little bit too light). I used .125 inch thick material and extended the edge out to where the bend line transition is.
I want to add a large weld along this area so as the beef it up a lot more than the original which again seemed to be a little flimsy here.
..no worries about inadequate penetration with the MIG here.
rust.
It's obvious you know what you're doing.
I was talking to him last night at Happy Hour and he said Sat. morning so I'd better hold off the Appleton's and Coke 'till Sunday heh heh heh
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