Here is kind of a “before” picture. To the right is the left (driver’s) door, which is toast. To the left and below are the front fender and outer rocker, respectively, which don’t seem too awful bad, right? Just a few rust bubbles, right?
Wrong! Here is what lurks underneath:
I’ve already started cutting out the rusty metal, see how bad it gets as I progress:
Here is one of those “what were they thinking?” bits.
These small assemblies I guess are meant to be splash shields, and I think there was some foam or rubber like material in the little groove. They may have done some good when new, but not long before the elements take their toll. Why not put it on the front of the A pillar where it would have done more good, and possibly have been serviceable? We’ll never know.
Next I have cut a piece out of the front fender; not only was it rusty, but the A pillar and contour panel behind it are rusty too.
With this out of the way, and the bottom of the A pillar cut off, even more damage is visible:
Notice the lap spot weld, where the mid-rocker joins the inner front wheel well surround. I had no idea the wheel well surround metal extended this far back; it is a good 3 inches rearward of the door opening.
This piece of the outer rocker / door sill has to come off because it is in the way; I will end up reusing this piece:
With that out of the way, I can cut out the rusty inner wheel well surround metal:
This pic shows the difficulty of repairing a damaged unibody. The floor pan metal above and below the stiffener is the same piece of metal!
The “floor pan” extends in one piece all the way out to join the mid and outer rockers at the flange weld. The stiffeners are spot welded to it, inside and out. If I needed to replace the floor pan, entirely, I would have to cut out all the spot welds to remove those stiffeners. I didn’t count them, but there must be hundreds. No thanks.
Back to cutting out rust and cleaning up the area:
Next episode; making and installing repair parts. Stay tuned!
Rodney.