1961 Bel Air family project

[Jim Sullivan]

What a great restoration project! Good luck and can't waite to see more pictures.

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

What a great restoration project! Good luck and can't waite to see more pictures.

Thanks for the good luck wishes....so far things are going about as well as expected, I hope that trend continues.
I dropped off the exterior trim and molding at a local shop to be straightened and polished. I should have it all back in 4-6 weeks so that should work out well.
We needed to find the correct front seat. Around 1980, our dad pulled out the original seat and replaced it with a seat from a '76 Buick that was power adjustable, had head rests and seat belts. He has no clue what happened to the original front seat so we had to find another one. Luckily a forum member (9664imp) had one for sale and I received it earlier this week so things are rolling again.

Last Saturday my wife and I went to breakfast and then stopped by Impala Bobs to pick up some sheet metal. They had a lot of the parts in stock so we left with a truckload of new metal and I decided to get started on the work. I figure I'd replace the floor pans first so I decided to remove the doors and quarter window glass. The windshield is going to be replaced anyway so I didn't worry about that but I did cover the rear window to make sure no sparks or grinding debris touched the glass. Unless my dad changes his mind...we are planning on keeping the original glass for now.

I like to give some extra thought before I start cutting up stuff just to make sure I haven't overlooked something important or accidentally make more work for myself because no two projects are ever the same. In this case I have two basic issues with the original floor....1st, all 4 foot wells are heavily rusted...2nd, it looked like my dad cut the shifter hole with a can opener. On the bright side, the rear seat area and all the floor braces were solid as well as the two cowl braces at the very front corners. I formulated a plan to cut out the floor, rocker to rocker, toe panel to rear brace and replace with new while saving the braces underneath.
Photo 1: I decided to remove the doors to make access easier. I scribed around the hinge to cowl points so I could reinstall them later. I will have to mount the doors back on the car to set the forward position of the new rocker panels (when I get to that point...)

Photo 2 shows the 4 rusted foot wells along with a home-made repair that must have been done around the time the seat was changed.
Photo 3: A plasma cutter is my friend. Here I am cutting around the spine bracing that is under the forward foot wells. These items need to be saved and transferred to the new floor pans. I'll do the same for the rear seat brackets and rear side panel board clips. One of the rear seat brackets is missing so I am going to have to make another one by using the remaining bracket as a template.
Photo 4: I decided to crawl underneath the car and drill a series of 3/16" holes around all the remaining braces. Then from above, I used a Sharpie to connect the dots....this gave me a rough cut line so I wouldn't accidentally cut through something that I wanted to keep. This photo shows what it looked like after the rough cutting was done.
Photo 5 is basically the same thing and the point where I stopped for the day. I wanted to catch some of the March Madness games and relax a bit.

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

On Sunday...
A helper showed up so I put him to work...
We used a wire wheel to find all the spot welds. I think we counted 280 or so. (photo 1)
After breaking the teeth off the Eastwood spot weld cutter on the first hole I had to come up with a plan. We decided to center punch each of the welds, then use a 1/8" drill bit and partially drill a divot to help locate the center pin of the cutter. Lastly, I drilled at SLOW speed and stopped as soon as the metal shavings changed color from clean steel to rust dust. I few times I drilled too far into the brace material but I quickly got a feel for it and stopped breaking the teeth. Luckily I ordered 3 replacement hole saws for the mandrel so that was good. The hole saws are double sided so they can be flipped over when the teeth break. I burned through both sides of the first saw by 6 spot welds....the second saw lasted me about 20-30 spot welds and then I finished the last 200-240 on the same saw (once I figured out how to quit destroying them so quickly...) Photo 2 shows the progress.
Photo 3 shows my helper vacuuming out the braces so we can attack them with the wire wheel. We wore hearing and eye/face protection as well as filter masks since there was a lot of fine particles flying around everywhere.
The last 3 photos show the floor pan trimmed and fitted into place. Since these floor halves have the electroplating black primer, I figure they must be imported parts and they fit as such. The seat track mount holes are off by 3/4"-1" so I am going to need to figure out the best solution . I am also not too happy with the the difference in contour between the pan and braces underneath. I may be able to draw the braces into place and then weld or I may have to cut the braces away from the inner rockers and shift them over slightly. I am not sure yet because I haven't evaluated all my options yet. This was my stopping point for the day.....the Arizona/Gonzaga game was going to start soon so I cleaned up to catch the action.

 

[Jim Sullivan]

Your making great progress! I used the same floor pans and found that by using long reach vise grip welding clamps and self drilling sheet metal screws I was able to pull the floor pans into the braces.

I've replaced several floors in in the past and found that the Blare skip proof spot weld cutters seem to last the best. They also use a drill bit in the center to keep the cutter from skipping. With the style cutters you are using, we usually drill an 1/8" hole in the center of the spot weld to keep the cutter from skipping off the spot weld. Then slow and steady pressure to cut the spot weld.

Here is a link to my 63 Impala project if you are interested.

http://www.348-409.com/forum/threads/63-ss-impala-original-409-car.26066/

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

Your making great progress! I used the same floor pans and found that by using long reach vise grip welding clamps and self drilling sheet metal screws I was able to pull the floor pans into the braces....

I'll be working on the floors again tomorrow and was thinking about trying the exact solution you suggested. Glad to hear that it worked out for you...hopefully I'll have the same results.

Here is the spot weld cutter that I used. It has a spring loaded pin in the center. Seemed to work great once the operator figured out how to get his act together.
http://www.eastwood.com/ew-3-8in-double-ended-spot-weld-cutter.html

 

[Jim Sullivan]

I still use that style spot weld cutter from time to time. I have also been a skip proof cutter. Eastwood sells this also. With the skip proof cutter I have found that most of the time I do not need a pilot hole since it has a drill bit in the center(it doesn't drill a hole through the material only an indentation). Here is a link: http://www.eastwood.com/ew-skip-proof-spotweld-cutter.html

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

I still use that style spot weld cutter from time to time. I have also been a skip proof cutter. Eastwood sells this also. With the skip proof cutter I have found that most of the time I do not need a pilot hole since it has a drill bit in the center(it doesn't drill a hole through the material only an indentation). Here is a link: http://www.eastwood.com/ew-skip-proof-spotweld-cutter.html

Thanks for the link, I'll have to give that one a try. I still have my old spot weld cutter that I purchased from Eastwood when I replaced the floors on my '55 Bel Air but I wanted to try something new this time. I'm glad I did because the new tool worked much better than the old one. Next time I'll try the one you mentioned and should be even easier.

Thanks for the link to your post....I am not sure how I missed that thread. The right floor half is flanged to receive about 3/4" of overlap from the left floor half which makes it easy for plug welding. However, I would still need to seam seal the joint from below to preserve the metal. Due to the X-frame construction of these cars, seam sealing inside the tunnel seems next to impossible unless the body is removed. How do you plan on sealing that joint?

I have been debating the idea of using panel bond adhesive for that center joint along the entire length of the floor (toe panel to rear seat brace. What are your thoughts about that idea? I'll still plug weld everything else though. The benefit of using panel bond is that it would also act as a seam sealer and solve two problems at once. Am I missing something obvious that would throw a wrench in my plans?

 

[Jim Sullivan]

I plug welded the center of the floor because I will be taking the body off of the frame. Then I will seam seal the joint, inside and out.

I have used panel adhesive several times to attach quarter panel patches on other vehicles. If you're not going to pull the body off of the frame, I think the panel adhesive might be a good idea just for the center seam. It should be plenty strong enough as I read data sheets that stated the metal failed in testing before the adhesive joint. I wonder if you would be able to run a series of small tack welds down the seam after the adhesive was set up? Maybe check with the supplier of the adhesive.

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

... If you're not going to pull the body off of the frame, I think the panel adhesive might be a good idea just for the center seam. It should be plenty strong enough....

Thanks. Yes, the adhesive is super strong....almost too strong in some cases. We use Lord Adhesives in our shop (sign fabrication) and we have to be careful because it can grip too well and warp the surface of the metal. Something like the transmission tunnel wouldn't be a cause for concern. Bonding large flat areas could be an issue if the adhesive is too aggressive. The stuff comes in various levels of 'grip' as well as various lengths of work time. Generally speaking, the quicker it goes off, the tighter it grips. If I decide to give the panel bonding a try then I'll almost certainly have to use some screws or rivets in several spots to suck the joint tight. Screws would be my first choice and I would have to abandon them to the floor because they might not come out once the adhesive sets. The screw heads could remain under the carpet padding without issue. Someday down the road if we ever decide to take the body off the frame for whatever reason then I could reach in there with a grinder and cut the excess length off the screw tip flush with the floor and it would look fine. A shot of red oxide primer and it would look fine.

If I decide to go that route then I'll let you know how it works. These are the screws that I use for this sort of work. http://www.grainger.com/product/K-Lath-Self-Drilling-Screw-WP99781/_/N-8n3Z1z0kkvc?s_pp=false

 

[Jim Sullivan]

Sounds like you have a good plan there. I have used the same screws and the ones with hex heads to hold panels together while plug welding. I have also used counter sunk rivets to help hold the glued joints. Can't waite to see it all done!

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

No major updates yet....still working on the floor pans. I discovered some rot on the inner rockers at the A-pillars on both sides so I had to fix that first. This is the point where I begin second guessing myself thinking I might have been better off going with the full floors complete with braces and rockers. Upon further investigation it appears that I only needed to fix a 7" section on the RH and a 3" section on the LH side so it wasn't too bad after all. I was surprised to find what appears to be a baffle inside the rocker sections.....so it looks like we have an inner rocker, outer rocker and captured baffle. When I cut out the rotted section of inner rocker, the baffle was almost completely gone so I just cleaned it up and replaced the inner rocker section only. I figure it will be easier to replace the baffles when I do the outer rockers. I am curious to see how bad it looks in there when I open it up full length.

I didn't think to snap too many photos since I was busy concentrating on the best way to repair the damage. Looks pretty bad but it's easier to fix now while the floors are out so I guess I was a little lucky in that regard. I made up a small filler piece to help keep the existing rails aligned which seemed to help out quite a bit. I made sure to trim the filler down so it doesn't conflict with the future baffle that will be installed when the outer rockers are replaced.

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

After the inner rockers were repaired, I got back to work on the floor sections. I marked and drilled new holes for the seat tracks and then bolted the floors in place. That by itself did wonders for pulling the pans into the braces and things lined up much better afterwards. I then used a few clamps to get it where I wanted. Then I scribed a line around the braces from under neath the floors and marked where I wanted holes to be drilled. Then out came the pans to be prepped for final installation. I welded on the spine braces at the front foot wells since it was easier to do it when the pans were upside down. I cleaned and prepped the existing braces with weldable primer. While I had the floors out, I cleaned the frame with a wire wheel and shot a quick coat of chassis black on the portions that can't be easily reached later. I didn't bother masking off the brake line since I plan on replacing them all anyway. I used panel bond on the center seam and toe board seam and it worked out great. I spot welded the braces and side rail sections. I ran out of welding gas on the LH pan so I had to call it a day. I think I have about a dozen plug welds to go and I can then wrap it up.

 

[62impala409]

Those "Z" channels inside the rocker are probably rotted out on all of these X frame cars without the owners being aware of it. I have seen several documents that explains how GM designed these rockers to allow water from the cowl area to flow through them to keep them flushed out. I guess that didn't quite work out. Our Moderator Bob replaced these pieces when he rebuilt his '63 several years ago.Leo

 

[Bub6le 2op]

Great detail on your project, keep it up. I look forward to reading all the new progress great job

 

[oldskydog]

like this.

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

like this.
View attachment 25327

Sort of....on my car it looks like the outer rocker has a lip that sisters up to a matching lip on the inner rocker. The rocker you fabricated is slightly different but it looks like the function is the same. I couldn't see very well and didn't break out my boroscope, but it looked like there might be reinforcement gussets between the inner rocker and inner baffle at each brace location. Did you find anything like that in your car?

Here is a drawing I found while searching...I wish I could remember where this came from so I could credit the source.

 

[oldskydog]

That picture I posted was from a thread posted by an individual doing exceptional fab work on a 61 or 62. I think it was on Chevytalk and the guy was Sven Ericksson from Sweden or Switzerland ? He used the tag "Bld" if I recall correctly.

 

[Jim Sullivan]

The floors are looking good. I found the inner reinforcement was rotted off on every rocker repair that I have done so far on 62-64's. As Leo said already- poor drainage in the rockers.

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

That picture I posted was from a thread posted by an individual doing exceptional fab work on a 61 or 62. I think it was on Chevytalk and the guy was Sven Ericksson from Sweden or Switzerland ? He used the tag "Bld" if I recall correctly.

Very helpful CAD drawing...thanks for posting. I guess I better make that piece ahead of time since it sounds like it will need to be replaced. About how long is the baffle? How do you interpret the "lip only behind door opening" note? Do you think he is saying the lip only occurs at the door opening or to the rear of the door past the B pillar?

 

[LMBRJQ 60]

V How do you interpret the "lip only behind door opening" note? Do you think he is saying the lip only occurs at the door opening or to the rear of the door past the B pillar?

The 18mm vertical section in the profile drawings (RH) is only required behind the door opening as the outer rocker panel top to inner folds are no longer required there. The reinforcement panel will carry on and help attach the inner rocker panel on to the inner panel where the rear seat trim panel fixes to.
If you look at the LH drawing the reinforcement panel does not have this vertical section in the door area as the inner and outer rocker attach along the join.

Steve

That picture I posted was from a thread posted by an individual doing exceptional fab work on a 61 or 62. I think it was on Chevytalk and the guy was Sven Ericksson from Sweden or Switzerland ? He used the tag "Bld" if I recall correctly.

View attachment 25346 View attachment 25347