1970 Javelin, back at it!!

232jav3sp wrote: TheHubble wrote: Thats enough rust to scare most people off. I love seeing cars like this get the love and tlc they deserve! I'll definitely be watching this one. That it would. You should have seen the 66 El Camino that I tried to get before I found this! Needs roof, firewall, floorpans, quarters, rad support, etc... This car is nothing in comparison. Besides, I have pretty much everything except the trunk troughs. Going to look at the parts car I found next Saturday. The guy has a 2nd Javelin that I want to look at, too. May get two cars!

Sweet. I had a 68 Ghia that had been near a barn fire and sat out in a field for 7 years. I got it for free. Started to pull the seats out to clean up the interior and there was NO floor at all. It was basically a shell. Needless to say I sold it to a gentleman with a lot more time and re$ource$ than I. I'd like to see the progress on this one.

Its wednesday night! Have any updates for us?

Okay, this is all that I accomplished Wednesday evening. Sorry for not having a ton if info. This is going to be fairly slow goings as this is my first time welding body panels. Been welding for a few years now, and have never done anything this thin, for this purpose. Trying to take it slow and get a feel for it.

Passenger side rear quarter from donor car, before new lower corner.



Here it is with lower panel cut out. Some unknown perforation in the trunk drop off. Going to replace with the new one I have, once I get the quarter cut out and hung on the car.







New lower panel clamped in place.







First complete welded seam. Now, remember, I am a mechanic, not a professional body man by any means.





Welds ground down. There is one low spot in the weld near the wheel opening, and high spot near the tail panel. Nothing too major. Got a lot of it out with a little heat and hammer and dolly.





Here it is sanded with 80 grit. Sorry for the poorer quality pictures. Just using my phone.



Only other news is that I got these really nice, driver quality, original sun visors. In green! You can see the one has a small dimple from a clip of sorts being left on for a while. Not too bad.



I did had my girlfriend wire-wheel the all the welded seams around the tail panel. She couldn't get there as early as we had hoped. So that was all she was able to do. Will have here clean up the sun visors next time, and pull the rear seat back out.

I did sand down the quarters on the car right where I will be cutting them out and welding the new ones in. All in all I'm pretty happy with how I did considering this was my first time doing such welding. The bottom of the wheel opening came out really well. No offset body line there!

Thanks. I'm just anxious to get on to the chassis work. Love doing steering, suspension, brakes, alignment! lol

Big progress the last two days.

This was the rot hole in the driver's side frame rail. Right below the rear upper control arm mount.


As you can see, the strut tower was rotted out, too.


All the spot welds drilled out and separated on the headlight panel.


After drilling out the firewall spot welds, I cut the frame rail right behind the front through bolt for the radius rod bracket. I did this because the rest of the frame from that spot back, under the floor, is in very good condition. Yes, I have a parts car, and it would have been better to replace the entire rail. But, that car has rot in the rail below the radius rod bracket. So, I am going to build a tube inside the frame rails to help join them together. It'll add strength, help to keep the rails inline (as will the engine crossmember and radius rod bracket). This, in addition to the radius rod bracket acting as a "bolt on gusset", should prove to be a strong repair.





Some nut shells from mice, but, clean inside otherwise.












Started on repairing and cleaning up the headlight panel, and firewall, in preparation for the new frame rail/strut tower/inner fender. So far, this job is not turning out to be as hard as I first thought.


Edited by 232jav3sp - Aug/09/2014 at 8:32pm