1970 Chevelle SS restoration

[Too Many Projects]

A little more "get ready to lift the body" work. As of this afternoon, it is ready. And I received a set of all new body cushions and fasteners today. I need to load the rotisserie on the trailer and bring it up to the front shop building.
I started sanding on the roof to quarter seam to expose the lead and melt it out, but there is no lead ?? The filler feels like a plastic. It's very dense and hard. I chopped most of it pout with an air chisel. Anyone familiar with this, or has the lead already been replaced ? It doesn't seem that way, as the original white paint goes right up to the seam. I'm going to sand more carefully on the other side and try to determine if it is original.

[Too Many Projects]

A bit surprised to see nothing on the transition panel over the axle... I see no evidence anything was ever on there and as difficult as it was to get the bolts out/broken off, this body has never been off the frame. As rusty as this cars body is, the frame only has scale. ALL the mount holes are great !

[Too Many Projects]

Dug into the right A pillar cancer and did a lot of amateur butchering.

[Too Many Projects]

I need to do some of the same on the left side too, but not as extensive, I hope. I'm already thinking it's going to be an interesting experience getting the new floor back inside the A pillar and accessible to weld in on 3 sides. I got a really good deal on the floor with all the rockers already included, but finding a way to feed that brace into the pillar while lowering the body is going to take some imagineering for me.
The first new piece came today, almost done with that side..LOL. I need the mount bracket first and that won't be here until next week, which doesn't matter now anyway. I'll be leaving here tomorrow night and not getting home until Sunday night anyway.

[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.