More work on the floor

It makes the world an interesting place when everyone has a different opinion.  We have the talking heads on the TV now telling us how they are going to change everything in the country, but they all use the same tired words that candidates of the past use, and across party lines. At least for me there were really only three major options I heard for the floor repair, although there is no consensus, or single right answer for that matter.  I asked lots of people and read internet web pages, and you have one group that says replace it all, some say patch, some say patch the big holes and use POR15 on the pinholes. Replacing everything is nice, because you get rid of all of the rust.  It is challenging because the body can twist if not properly braced, and you ruin the whole car when that happens.  New metal isn't as thick or strong according to some as it comes from Asia (real or opinion?), and the stamping is not precise (this is true).  Any option with new metal will require hours to make it fit right.  Thus, the middle option to replace rusty pieces where they are needed.  You get the strength of new metal, but can retain much of the factory stamping.  You won't get all of the rust out where the bracing keeps it hidden.  It also takes a lot more time to do small pieces than the whole floor, and you end up with welds everywhere. The cover it up method is easiest, and some of the products out there I hear are really good.  They still will never be as strong as metal, and you can coat what you can't get to. 

I chose the middle option, as it was best for my skills, I couldn't screw things up, and any ugliness will be hidden underneath the carpet or underbody rustproofing.  Plus my time is free to me, and I get to learn more this way (I think...).  In total, I replaced the two front floor sections, a piece under the rear seat, a spot under the passenger's seat, and one by the front left body mount. 

I did not want to have to do this one, but the bolt here was rusted so badly I could not extract it from below.  To get it out, I had to weld a nut to what was left sticking out the top of the cage nut you see, and unscrew it from the inside of the car.  Lots of heat and penetrating oil were still necessary.  I was able to save the cage nut, so that part was good.  In the picture you can see the kind of rust that will be hidden under the old floor.  This is one reason the whole floor replacement was suggested.  I cleaned up what I could see, and painted inside with rust converting paint as best I could.

 This is what you get from the patchwork method. I cut just what I needed from the new floor, and butt welded it in place.  With the edges ground down, it looks not bad.

 The front body mount on the firewall was rusted beyond saving.  I had to cut out a larger access here to get to the cage nut, chisel it out, and weld in a new one (cut from a section of the trunk floor I'm not using).  Then butt weld the piece back in place, grind smooth, and we're almost as good as new.

 Dave came over for a few more hours and welded in the passenger side floor.  We chose to overlap the panels for additional strength here, and welded them solid from both the top and bottom.  It isn't the prettiest repair I've seen, but it will be very strong and hidden.  The transmission tunnel was left open until we get the frame back.  The shifter comes through in a different spot, I think where you see the floor dip down at the back of the replacement panels.  This will need to be opened up for the new transmission, then we can weld this area together.  At the bottom of the picture you can see where I had to replace under the passenger seat.  The metal looked perfect from the top, but had rusted through from underneath where the bracing is.  Same procedure as above.  Here I cut back until I found solid metal, and used a piece of new floor fit to just what I needed.

We took the motor over to the shop last weekend so they could use it to get the transmission brace properly placed before painting.  The frame has been completed and rust proofed, and is just waiting for the brace before it is painted.  Looks nice with all of the rust removed, doesn't it?

 Sharp eyes may notice the boxing of the frame we asked the shop to do.  Originally the frame was an open c-channel from the firewall back.  Plates were added for additional strength that will keep the body from twisting from the additional power, and give more overall strength.  Cars have abandoned the perimeter frame concept, but you will see new trucks advertised with 'fully boxed frames'.  Same idea here. The Chevelle is looking more like a brand new car with the rust quickly disappearing!

(Re)engineering a floor

 A couple weeks ago I shared the removal of the floor pans.  Last weekend (with my sisters approval :) ) I decided to go to Lowes and buy myself a MIG welder.  It's another $380 towards the project, but everyone should have a welder anyway, right? The floor design is pretty straightforward, just a stamped piece of sheet metal.  I don't understand the cowl design Chevy came up with; I'd like to think it was a crush panel they designed, but I doubt in 1965 safety was a major concern. More likely there was something about the manufacturing that created the cowl structure. I can't capture it in the pictures, but there are several layers of steel here.  There is one outer layer, that the rocker is spot welded to.  Inside there is a second layer that forms the inner skin, where you see the large cutout for the vent.  Between the vent and the door is a thick piece of 16 gauge steel, the sets over this layer, and runs down to the base of the rocker.  If you follow the inner rocker from right to left, you can see a line where it goes from gray to rusty.  This is the edge of the inner rocker and the rusty part is part of the thick steel that fills the kick panel by the door. On both sides, this piece held water between the inner and out layers, and cause it to rust through.  There is another layer you can see in the second picture, where the filler panel at the back of the fender rolls around into the rocker.

 Layered sheets of steel are bad when it comes to rust.  Maybe good for safety? I don't know, but my decision was to eliminate this mess, and create one solid piece welded around the edges for the floor to mount to. This eliminates a lot of ugly mess created by the factory design.  It won't be stock, but I think it will look better and function well.  I was surprised to see that in the rockers behind this area, there was no rust at all.  It was just confined to the kick panel area.

There are no replacement panels or guidebook how to fix the kick panel area, so this is where engineering meets trial and error.  After searching at three Lowes stores, I found a piece of 16 gauge steel.  This is about as heavy as one can work by hand.  The original floors are probably 18 or 20 gauge, my guess is the new floors are only 22 gauge or thereabouts.  I wanted the kick panels to use as thick of a piece as I could work to replace all of the thickness from the factory.  My method was to use a piece of posterboard to figure out the shape I wanted, and cut that out.  This is what I came up with, the drivers side is the larger piece, as that side had more rust.

I think this picture gives you an idea what I had to remove.  Lots of rusted pieces and spot welds in this area; using the air hammer really did a number on my wrists.  I'm getting to old for the hard work!  The fender mounting bolt was rusted completely away, so I cut out a body mount bolt from the trunk pan that won't be needed, and welded it in here.  It's a little larger bolt size, but has the correct cage nut to allow the body shop to mount the fender. I found several pieces of windshield and side window class, as well as a mouse nest deep inside the rocker.  The glass had probably been rattling around in there since 1965.  I did leave a broken drill bit behind for the next person to find. A little wire brushing and rust reforming paint, and we're ready for new metal.

Here is what it looks like after welding in the new piece.  What you don't see is the hours of fitting the parts.  Posterboard is much easier to bend than steel, so even though the shape was close, there is a lot of pounding and bending to get the new kick panel in place.  The edges were all welded solid, with a few spot welds in the center for good measure.  Both sides now have a single thick plate that connects from the firewall to rocker to the floor.

Here are a couple pictures of the drivers side.  The rust was worse here, but that almost made the job easier.  I cut out more metal, so had more chances to make the piece fit better.  On the passenger side I was trying to save more of the original metal, which creates more work.

This picture is from underneath showing the drivers side repair of the rocker area.  Originally the filler panel seen at the right would wrap around the kick panel filler. Because this was rusted away, I flipped it and the kick panel repair now wraps around the fender filler panel. I get the strength necessary this way, and it will all be hidden behind the fender.

 After wire brushing the floor, I found one pinhole and some rust under the rear seat that I didn't like the look of.  I cut a patch from the 16 gauge leftover steel and welded it in.  Here it is before cleaning up the welds.  It's been 15 years since I welded, and I need some practice getting back to it.  It's pretty cool to be able to melt two sheets of steel together.

 Dave (son-in-law of Jill's coworker) worked this week to fit the floorpans.  This the part that takes real skill to fit, pound, and otherwise massage the part into place. One challenge he faced is after I cut out and replaced the factory mess that was the kick panel, there was less thickness in that area, so the floorpan needed to be adjusted to fit the larger gap created.  It took a few hours, but he did a great job.  The floorpan will be welded around the edges, and the welds ground flat. Once this is painted and under the carpet, you will never notice.

The frightening Flintstone stage

More reverse progress this week. A friend came by and cut the floor out, and exposed more rust in the drivers side rocker area.  The good part is this is in front of the rocker that shows, behind the fender area.  I may work to replace this part as the body work will not have to be perfect since it is hidden.  A wire brush works great for removing the rust without removing metal, and is hard enough it exposes thin areas in the metal.  This is the the beginning of the part that is hardest on me - to see the car cut up into pieces.  Maybe because it is the stage that irreparable damage can be done, but it has to be done to get solid metal back in the car. The passenger side did not look bad, but we decided to cut out a larger section to replace an area full of pinholes in the metal.  It also removes a factory seam, so should be stronger in the end.  Factory seams are only spot welded, and the repair panels will have full length welds holding them.

The new panels are inexpensive thankfully, but there is a lot of labor getting them to fit properly, cutting out old rusted metal, and welding in the new without warping any sheet metal. We will need the body on the frame to know where to put the transmission hump.  It needs to be a couple inches taller, which is why we cut the tunnel out in this picture. We stopped cutting at the floor braces, so we don't impact where the body mounts to the frame.  The original pieces look okay from what I can see, with just surface rust, so by avoiding them we should maintain the shape of the car and make it easier when mounting the body.  The trunk area isn't so lucky. Hopefully it will not be long before I can share pictures of the new floor in place.

Here is a closeup of the drivers side after I cleaned away the rustiest bits.  The panel open in the middle bottom was full to the top with rust (inside the rocker).  Amazingly the inside of the rocker itself is not rusty.  Go figure how that happened.  There were multiple layers of steel here, which I think helped keep the moisture in.  There aren't patches made for this area, so I am thinking to make one single plate (thinner than stock) to cover over the whole area.  By removing the layers I hope that this will stay rust free in the future.  I don't think that it needed the strength of the thicker steel, and the only thing I can say for sure that the multiple welds we add should improve the strength, even if we use 22ga instead of 16ga steel.

Merry Christmas to me, and a story for you

I drove up to Iowa after Christmas to go rummaging through the garage for old Chevelle parts.  More on that trip below, but I thought I would start with a little story behind the car.  We dug through some old newspaper clippings about how the Chevelle came to be where it is at today.  The clipping below is from the Washington Evening Journal, June 14, 1965. The circled article is about the Chevelle; it reads 

"Accident. - A 1965 model car driven by Bennie B Gray of Smith Center, Kansas, was totally demolished Friday at 2:30 p.m. when it ran into the side and under a truck driven by Gerald Gene Bender of route three Washington.  Sheriff's officers investigated the crash which occurred as Bender was turning his truck, owned by Lee Drollinger, into the driveway at Farm Service of Washington. The Kansas car was attempting to pass the truck at the time.  Treated for minor injuries were two Smith Center men, passengers in Gray's car: James Myers and Dennis Sutton."

The article to the right is about the marriage of Betty Louise Peters to Bennie Bryan Gray.  James Myers was an usher in the wedding.  It must have been intentional to put these articles side by side in the paper, don't you think?

After the accident the Chevelle ended up at Van Dyke Company in Cedar Rapids (top car in the add below).  Compare 'totally demolished' in the newspaper report to 'Will drive' in the advertisement!  Different perspectives, certainly.

 We also found the original license applied for tags.  It's amazing to me the miles this car accumulated in the first year.  It was being built in January of 1965, and Bennie B. Gray managed 9000 miles before the accident in June.  The car was restored after July 12, and was up to 16,000 miles by the end of 1966!  Imagine this on a car with no power steering and no power brakes.  They tell stories about how the Chevelle did not tune well stock, and needed timing set to +16.  In the short time Gray had the car, it seems that he had recurved the distributor, cut holes in the air cleaner, and possibly put a cam in the car.  All we know is it was fast.

 In a future trip I'll look for photos for the following life.  We talked through stories of the Chevelle at the Gulf of Mexico, in San Diego at the Golden Gate Bridge, racing on the salt flats in Bonneville, and playing around at night before the windshield was in.

My fun was looking for parts in the garage.  Below may look like a pile of dusty parts to you, but it is an incredible find to me.  The boxes are literally falling apart; I need to repackage or get the pieces on the car.  We found brand new, OEM rocker panels, wheel well arches, hood front molding, and a grill center.  There are lots of other trim pieces from parts cars that we think may fit the Chevelle,  but we can't be sure until they are cleaned up and matched to the car.  Hopefully we can find at least one of each molding in good shape.   These parts would be impossible to find as OEM today, rather you would buy remanufactured parts that will not fit as well or look original.  It appears that Hoss bought these from the dealer in 1973 in anticipation to restore the Chevelle.

 There were also some nice original parts, many hard to find.  There is a glove box molding, shifter boot, and a steering wheel in perfect shape.  This may not sound like much, but you cannot find this wheel as a reproduction, and I have never seen one come up for sale. I really like the look, and will probably try to use this on the car if possible. We also found the dash top mounted clock, a rare accessory for 1965.  I saw one on eBay listed for $1,199.  That seems high to me, but gives you an idea what people think these are worth.  These parts will be a huge plus when we get the car ready to go back together.

Rear axle R&R

A quick update today; Sig's finished up the rear axle rebuild with all new bearings and seals, as well as installing the Powertrax limited slip.  Comparing the final result to the picture, you will see everything is new except the axle, axle shafts, and ring and pinion gears.  Keep your parts if you ever restore a car - that little bracket you see at the top of the axle holding the brake lines is $45 to replace!  Thankfully I have most all of the original parts in the basement so finding and cleaning this little parts is reasonably easy, and saves me some money. 

I did not show the tear down, but you can see what we started with in the picture above.  Several broken bolts, lots of rust, wasp nest, and those annoying upper control arm bushings added to the enjoyment.  I found a slick method on Youtube if you ever have to replace the bushings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPXf1OR9Lnk

Below are a few pictures of the rear end assembly.  The brake kit is from CPP as part of the Pro-Touring Stage 3 kit.  They calipers dropped right on (after painting), although one of the three t-bolts does not work with my axle.  I bought a 3/8 grade 8 bolt instead for one position that solved the problem. I don't know why they use t-bolts, a regular bolt would be easier and work better.  The instructions were terrible, but thankfully there isn't a lot of ways you could do this wrong.  I don't think that I found one, at least that I can tell at this point.

 Next step was installing the new cover. It isn't necessary to have aluminum, but doesn't it look cool?  This is one of those things that I have always thought helps set the rear look of the car, a little bit of jewelry under the bumper.  Two quarts of Royal Purple gear lube filled the case; I will check the level once the axle is in the car.

 Here is a better look at the disc brake that replaced the stock drum setup.  They won't fit behind the 14" wheels, but I'm planning on at least 17's for the final ride.

 The springs are new, with refurbished spring seats.  This is about as far as I can go without the frame.  You need a BFH to put the bushings back in, and that is easier done in the car.  With new seals, disc brakes, and posi-traction, the rear axle should give excellent performance for the next 50 years.  Just don't ask what this part alone cost ;)  It is where the rubber meets the road, so money here is hopefully well spent.  It felt good to empty out a couple boxes from the basement.  Hopefully the frame will be ready soon and I can empty a few more!

Thinking about colors

 I know it's early in the process, but I've been thinking a lot about color this week.  Maybe because I'm to a point where I need the help of others to move the project along.  The original color is Madiera maroon.  I like the car in this color, but it's just so common and we have the opportunity to go with something a little more lively. Value wise, I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm not planning to sell this anytime soon.  Since the car will be repainted top to bottom, the time is now to decide if we go with something different.  You don't want to rebuild and change your mind later, because it is next to impossible to get in all of the door jams and little crevices without starting all over again.

My first choice today is something in the family of a black cherry pearl/dark maroon metallic. I have wanted a street rod in this color since I was a teenager.  You could argue black cherry pearl should be reserved for a '49 Mercury and have a good point, but I don't have one of those. Scion has a series of this color called 'Black Cherry Pearl', 'Blackberry Crush', or 'Sizzling Crimson Mica'.  At least in pictures this looks like a great color, you don't see it often, and would be a modern interpretation of the original maroon.  The Scion below is in the sizzling crimson mica.

My favorite color has always been in the dark blue family.  I think the '66 Chevelle looks amazing in this color, but for some reason I don't care for it on the '65.  I'm not sure why since they are so similar.   Chevy's 'Imperial blue' comes pretty close to what I call midnight blue metallic. The GTO is also available in something similar, so chances are if Chevy made a Chevelle today, it would get this color from the factory.

I've seen a few pictures of Chevelle's in dark silver metallic, like the one below.  I love '65 Chevelle's in this color, and if I were to branch away from maroon, this is the color I would go for.  The picture shows one with the molding's painted (yuck), but the silver really sets off nice against the polished stainless trim.  I may not be the most exciting of the set above, but it has a nice elegant and sleek look appropriate for a Chevelle.  Write me a comment and tell us your thoughts.

Powdercoating new parts

More piecewise progress this week.  The rear axle is back from painting and off to get the axles back in.  It looks nice cleaned up and powdercoated.

 Parts from CPP for the brakes and suspension came in various coatings and prep, so I decided to take the time to strip them down and either paint or powdercoat before they are installed.  I think this will keep them from rusting as quickly, and get's everything to a nice uniform finish.  The spindle on the left is bare, the right spindle is in black powdercoat.

 I think the brakes turned out nice.  The top is the finished product, the bottom row is how they arrived.  I powdercoated the gold cadmium plated parts black, and used a silver caliper paint on rest.  No gaudy red for me.  How did red caliper paint catch on anyway?  You see it on new cars, and mostly it just looks tacky, IMO.  I like the subtle silver that will blend in behind the wheels.