Saving the silver 70...

[Whistler74]

Fantastic work Bruce!
It's giving me some hope that my BJ74 can be saved - I don't think it's quotes as rotten but then, I haven't cut it open yet either.
Did you make the quarter panels or are those from David?

Cheers

 

[MrMoMo]

Fantastic work Bruce!
It's giving me some hope that my BJ74 can be saved - I don't think it's quotes as rotten but then, I haven't cut it open yet either.
Did you make the quarter panels or are those from David?

Cheers

Thanks! - Everything is saveable, but the sooner you do it, the less work there will be! Just got back from 10 days in Central America..... Drool... One of these trips I'm gonna bring me back a troopie or two, or three..or... (For serious!) ¿Who wants in on a group buy? hahaha.

Yep, rear quarters are from @David*BJ70 - and are awesome! They have been hanging on my wall for a while now waiting to be installed! (Maybe 2-1/2 years!)

Hope to get the quarter welded on this weekend, and maybe even get started on the drivers side rocker. I am in withdrawal!

I suppose I should have posed this link earlier (I have now added it to an earlier post as well), for anyone else needing rear quarter panels, get these!

For Sale: - [CA-QC] BJ70 rear quarter panel

 

[MrMoMo]

Spent a bit of time in the evenings this week trying to catch things up, two half hour evenings and a 45 minute one, then ~4 hours this afternoon.

Finished welding on the passenger side rear quarter panel.... This was my "artsy" shot of it.

And then of corse the fun of grinding it all down (and hitting a few spots again). This side still retains some of the "character" of whatever accident it was involved in from its previous life, but it's far less "character" than before. Will need a little more than a skim coat of bondo to even things out - but should be only a few dippy areas, and very thin. (Definitely less than there was before!!!)

Next (today) I started the front corner, and making the tie in between the rocker and the quarter panel. First was the last piece of the rocker, which is actually cut off the quarter - there was a slight "step" missing and I thought it was easier to just lop it off, put the bend in, and weld it back on... Clamps are holding the lip tight for the sealant. Once that dries I will weld the seams up. As you can see here, I also started on reconstructing the bottom of the door frame while I was waiting for the paint on the back of the rocker piece to dry...

So to start the door jamb, I bent a piece to a large radius, using my bender and then opening up the radius on my anvil.

Next I stretched the outside lip in my stretcher, and cut the inside lip to match my cut line on the truck. This piece is actually curved in both directions so I had to cut and weld a few relief slits. I tacked it into place to fit the next piece of the puzzle...

Unfortunately I made this piece a hair short (was using scrap) so had to add a little filler piece at the top.

 

[MrMoMo]

Just for fun I buffed the welds down to see how it was going to look..

So with this tacked in place I started working on the next piece, another large radius, multiple curve direction piece! After several trips back and fourth to the shrinker/stretchers I had this.

Here it is roughy in place, somewhat trimmed to fit the quarter panel.

Next I scribed (from the inside) where to cut the excess material off, and then welded. Unfortunately 1) my cut line was off a little so I had some large gaps to fill, and 2) OF COURSE, it's a long weekend so I ran out of gas... Bugger. Sanded down what I got done - I think it's going to come out ok - the door closes!

So, I'm calling it 6 hours, which puts me at 137.5 hours total... Geez.

 

[NM Frontier]

I wonder how one of those rear quarters from @David*BJ70 would line up on a 74?

 

[MrMoMo]

I'm not sure what the differences are for the 74, but the panels are cut long on the front and back so they may well fit. I would guess there is an extra inch, to inch and a half on each end.

 

[NM Frontier]

I think the rear is the same, the extra length on the 74 is up between the door and wheel well.

 

[MrMoMo]

Little bit more today, and a few evenings earlier in the week, and the passenger side is almost finished.

Finished welding up the front end in a few evening sessions, and today made and installed the corner below the tail light.

Here it is bent up ready to install:

Looks a little odd in that photo, but the corner is an increasing radius from bottom to top, made by 3 partial bends, all originating at the same point at the bottom, but fanning out towards the top. After bending them in my bender I opened the radius slightly on the anvil horn. Little easier to see here:

And it's welded! Still need to sand down the weld and attend to any little pinholes, but that should finish this side.

Tomorrow morning I'll kick into gear on the last tub repair, the drivers side rocker.

2 hours today, 2 1/2 hour evenings earlier, puts me to 140.5

 

[MrMoMo]

Well, the light at the end of the tunnel got a little dimmer today :c(

For some reason I never finished pulling the carped out of the footwells and, well.... They need work too. Bummer.

Not incredibly complex, and could be a lot worse, but most definitely need some work here in the passenger foot well:

And along the outside of the drivers footwell where it ties to the rocker:

Both sides have had a rough cleaning, and I have now cut out a strip down the side of the drivers floor, to access the top of the inner rocker, and remove that bad section of floor. (About 30mm wide, and as far back as the tape measure in the picture above.

Now, I knew the inside rocker on this side was horribly shot. It's actually worse than horrible, so far that I actually came in from the shop this morning and did a quick online search to see if I could buy it.... Nothing in my quick search.

So, I decided that the next best thing would be to make some tooling. I played around with a few test pieces to see how I could press form them, starting with some 22ga, then 18ga, and ending with the 16ga. Once I determined it would be possible, I spend an hour or so making a jig, and BOOM - check this out, inner rocker patch panel, made from 16ga sheet! Crazy stiff!

Current limit for me is my 15" wide max for bending the 90 degree bends, which works out OK, as I can get the majority of the inner rocker done in two pieces like that.

I made the whole piece (full rocker height) just to see if I could, but in reality I will splice this piece somewhere on the top surface, and the second patch panel will be below the floor, but above the "pockets".

Now that I have the tooling it's actually pretty simple to make one. They are not exactly as OEM, my "bumps" are more square, but they get the job done!!

About 3.5 hours working on the truck today, putting me to 144. If it wasn't for the added work to the floor, I figure I could probably be done at around 150..... But I expect at least anothe 10-15 hours to doc the floors :c(

 

[MrMoMo]

Well it's slow going, but it's going... Last weekend was a write off due to a double birthday, and a basement flooding at my rental property, but this weekend so far has managed to provide me with a little time to play (if you can call it that).

I blasted the floor to find all the rot, then cut the rotten bits of floor out and blasted again. Here is what came out:

Had a few issues with my blaster clogging up (I'm sure moisture gets through my trap) so it took longer than it should have, but it's done (and I'm still picking sand out of my nose and ears). Blasting the back side of the inner rocker sucks.

Cleaned up pretty good though, here are both sides cut and ready for fresh metal. Substructure is absolutely fine. After the picture was taken I painted the structure so when the floor goes over it, it won't just rust back out again.

Drivers side:

Passenger side:

Hopefully tomorrow will see at least the passenger side finished.

3 hours of blasting, cutting and vacuuming sand today, 147 hours in. Spent a little time (not counted in this thread) measuring and planning for the layouts to set up the back for camping, going to do a single back seat mount and a 1/2 slide out, but you'll have to read my other thread for that ;cD

Thinking of tackling all the paint prep myself... Primer, sanding blocking etc.... If the primer spraying goes well maybe even think about top coating... Oh boy.... Here come a lot more hours!

 

[divemedic]

Phenomenal work!

 

[boozewz]

Outstanding sir. Simply outstanding!

 

[MrMoMo]

Thanks guys, it's a waaaaay longer project than I thought it was going to be, but it's getting there. Really hoping to be done soon so I can get back on my 40 project!!!

So today I got the passenger floor mostly done, but need to let the sealer dry before I weld the last layer. The forward section has a flange in it for the floor pan to land on, so after bending that I blasted it and painted the back side of it, then I welded it in solid. Once I ground down the welds I painted the top side, as it ends up under the floor pan.

Next I put sealer along the top and bottom edge of where the floor pan lands on this lip, popped the floor pan fix panel in place and put a few tacks along the floor edge, and a few plug welds where the spot welds would have been.

After that I left it to dry, I'll weld the seam up later. Next I turned the truck around and went back to working on the drivers side.

So, the drivers side needs the front panel (ahead of the floor pan), the floor pan repair, and the inner and outer rocker. The inner most layer of that onion is the inner rocker, so that's where I decided to start...

I had previously made the first patch panel, so cutting the old part out was what had to happen first. Here is an attempt to show how bad it is under there!

And here is the part I cut out compared to the part in putting in!

I decided to weld a seam across the top instead of drilling out the spot welds here... Not sure why - but that's how I did it. Before I installed it I gave it a quick sweep blast so the paint sticks a little better (because I can get to both sides after its in, I didn't paint it).

 

[MrMoMo]

So here is the seam across the top of the inner rocker, which was a bit of a pain to grind down after I welded it - but thankfully since the floor is missing the edge I could push it down out of the way...

And here is that seam ground smooth, well - mostly smooth. The two holes at the back, are from where I drilled out the spot welds that held the bracket for the running board, which will get welded back in after the second inner rocker patch panel goes in.

And finally here it is from the back side, at least this part of the inner rocker is solid now!! The next patch panel will likely only go 1/2 way up or so, since the floor is intact above that part.

So that's just under 1/2 the inner rocker done, and the floor panels can now be done.

*edit - whoops, that's incorrect, there is a small patch on the top of the inner rocker at the front, that is under the floor and needs to be done first...

5 hours today, puts me up to 152 total.

 

[HoffLarr]

Wow! I haven't near as much work on my 70 as you have. And not as nice either! Keep it up.

 

[MrMoMo]

Well, forward ho I guess...

Got some new prescription safety glasses so had to try them out. Less crap (sand/rust) falling into my eyes now!

Got the passenger floor welded, so that side is now finished (on the tub) just needs a little seam
sealer and it will be ready for paint (has some on it temporarily). I think it came out ok considering how nasty it looked in the beginning.

Repaired and re-installed the mid point step bracket (inside the rocker where the two holes were in the top of the rocker in the previous post). Also got the next two inner rocker patches made for the drivers side, and got all the nasty bits chopped out.

Right side of patch panels are cut to match how the rot was cut out - left side (bottom of the rocker) is a little wonky but it's long and will get cut straight once it's installed and plug welded to the new outer rocker.

Will need to re-make the outer end of the body mount like I did on the other side, but that comes after the inner rocker repair is done.

It doesn't look like much, but it's all getting me closer to the end. Hopefully tomorrow I can wrap up the inner rocker and get moving on the outer and the floor... So hard to stay motivated, but so close to done!

Thinking that it might be worth the $$ to just replace the fenders!!! (The value of my time is increasing!!!)

5 hours today, mostly prep work, but hopefully that means faster progress tomorrow. Total now, 157 hours.

 

[MrMoMo]

Today I started by welding the aft piece of the inner rocker on, grinding down the weld and painting it. While I was waiting for the paint to dry I moved on to a few other areas.

So next was a little patch on the top of the inner rocker, right at the front where it pinches down. (Left heel area) - A little hard to see in the pic as all the grey is the same!

Made this small patch, painted the back side then welded it in, ground it down and painted it.

After that I went back and welded the second half (mid section) of the inner rocker - but no pics until the end or it will give away the section below...

Next I made this in the press and cut it in half.... Who can figure this out before reading on? The two bumps were supposed to be centered the same in the sheet, but it's hard to see when in the press and I made it with excess material so it was still usable.

So, cut it in half lengthwise and place them end to end.... Figure it out yet? Next I trimmed the funky edge and welded the two together end to end.

If you haven't guessed, don't scroll down yet!!!

 

[MrMoMo]

Ok, who guessed the edge of the floor?

Needed a little more massaging with the ball peen hammer to round the top a little, but workable. Welded it in along the seam and a few plug welds along the rocker top where the spot welds would have been, then ground it down flush. Next I need to make the missing section of the aft rib, and patch in the fairly flat/simple front and rear sections. By far this was the most complex piece of floor to make.

And of course, now that you know what happened up top, you can see the end result of what was finished below...

Behold - the inner rocker... Don't mind my leg - it's blocking the light so the picture wasn't under exposed...

So, floor and outer rocker.... Getting close, but so much more in the doors, fenders and hood!

6 hours today, 163 hours total.

 

[cruisermatt]

Pure dedication. Awesome work and the patch panels are getting better and better. Doing something like an FJ40 after this will be cake.

 

[broth9640]

Looks Great! I agree, buy some front fender as replacements. Maybe even consider some used doors too. Unless of course you are enjoying the punishment