1970 Chevelle SS restoration

[Too Many Projects]

Back to work on the car. The first piece of the rebuild puzzle is welded on.
I have an LED shop light and it makes the pics appear blue, sorry about that.
Once I had the right side stabilized again, I cut into the left side. I made the mistake of taking too much metal out of the right side before realizing I needed to repair the mount under the roto arm and having to be imaginative with holding that corner up to move the arm.... not making that mistake again.
Laying on the floor to repair the mount isn't ideal, especially with a rotisserie that is supposed to rotate to make working on the underside easier. Not possible with only 3 corners being held, so here we are...
Second piece welded on. While fitting the patch and tapping around the cutout, I found the metal to the inside of the patch was whisper thin, so cut that out too. I'll have to make a small patch for that too.

[Too Many Projects]

Been a little sidetracked from the Chevelle since last Saturday, but here is more of the brace extraction process.
And Tim S thought he had a lot of "stuff' in the rockers of his 'Vette...

[Too Many Projects]

The goal was to extract the A pillar brace that is sandwiched in between several other pieces, with out disturbing them, for now. It connects the inner/outer rockers to the floor pan/toe board, and body mount bracket as well as the inner cowl. I want to be able to use drill screws to hold all the together before I cut out the rocker on the left. I felt I removed too much of the structure on the right before realizing that brace needed to be replaced. I was able to get all my dims back but wasn't going to do the same on the left. So, I started drilling and grinding out a couple dozen spot welds. Once I had the brace free of the other pieces, I just needed to cut it off below my tubing brace. I grabbed my cut off wheel and oiled the tool before using it and when I hit the trigger to get the oil in the tool, my compressor kicked on, made a high pitched screeching noise that changed to a horrible grinding and then the motor caught on fire and quit running... The fire only lasted a few seconds and was out by the time I got over to it, but the smell of burned electrical was really strong. I pulled the rear cover off, hoping it just needed new brushes, but I knew better than that and was rewarded with molten metal having fallen into the copper windings and causing a massive short. It felt like an old friend had passed on, as I bought that compressor new in 2001 and it had at least 10,000 hours on it. And so started the saga of replacing the entire unit or the motor.

[Too Many Projects]

So, I close up shop, go in and start looking for a replacement motor. What a shock that was. The direct Baldor was almost $1,000 I'm thinking, I only paid $900 for the whole compressor !So I start looking for a less expensive alternative. I found them for $250 to 450 but they all have aluminum wires in the windings and are very prone to early failure when used for near constant run time, which mine had done hundreds of times, so I didn't pursue that direction.
I started looking at complete replacements, since the compressor is 24 years old too and found another Ingersol Rand, like mine is, at Tractor Supply on closeout. 5hp 2 stage 80 gallon tank, for $1150. Seemed like a no-brainer, so Sunday I went and got it and got it all wired and plumbed it by that evening. Started it up and it vibrated so bad, I couldn't read the labels on the tank and it walked across the floor until the wire cable stopped it. That was all for Sunday. Monday morning I call IR customer service to have a tech come out and diagnose it for warranty replacement/repair. The don't send techs to private homes, only a business...really ??? why do I have a warranty, if you aren't going to honor it ? She said I could bring the entire machine to the nearest service center for diagnosis and repair, IF it is a warranty issue, or return it to the dealer and they will handle the warranty, whether replace or repair. I called Tractor Supply and they said just bring it back and they will send it to IR under warranty and refund my money. OK, that's all fine and dandy but after 3 hours of removing it from my set up and returning it, now I'm back to square 1....
I came home and started looking for something to get me back up and running and remembered there is a manufacturer right here in MN. I looked up Castair, in Spicer, MN and called about a complete unit but then asked if they sold only replacement motors. Much to my relief, the salesman came up with a motor that wasn't a direct replacement, but had all the same power and running specs as the correct one and it was made by Baldor with copper windings. It was a motor they had made for them to their specs for a single stage compressor, but would work just as well on my 2 stage. He even cut me a discount that paid for the shipping and a pulley, as the shaft size is smaller, at a total cost of $400. There is a local shipping company called Speedee Delivery and they had it here by noon the next day !!! It did take a while to adapt it to my mounting plate and get it dialed in so I didn't use it yesterday, but I did today and it was just like having my old friend back...

[67since67]

Originally Posted by Too Many Projects

There is a local shipping company called Speedee Delivery and they had it here by noon the next day !!!

Speedee delivers down here also. Their trucks look like old FedEx cast offs but they give great service.

[Too Many Projects]

Cut, final fitted and screwed in place the left A pillar support bracket.

[Too Many Projects]

Moved on to imagineering how to remove the rest of the cabin floor. Not going to be fun with the angle supports, as they were put in after the pan. Plan is to cut around them and leave them in. Then drill and grind the spot welds from above and below to remove the rest. As I was looking at this, I decided I better find a way to hold the pillars in place after I remove the rest of the floor and left rocker. When I cut the right rocker off at the A pillar it dropped about a 1/4". I could easily push it back up into place, but knew the B pillar was going to need support. Sure enough the right side was 1/4" lower than the left, so I used my 2 floor jacks and leveled it all up and welded in the 2 supports to the roof structure. They are dead on even from 2 matching areas of the angle bracket to a locating hole in the supporting structure now.

[RPOLS3]

Wow Mitch - that is quite the project. Your fabrication skills are to be commended.