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  #81  
Old 01-18-2020, 08:12 PM
astroracer astroracer is offline
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Yea, the passenger side rocker/A pillar area was usable but the drivers side is shot. I just ordered a complete outer for that.
I got all of the junk cleaned out of the rocker and footwell yesterday. I cut out the footwell and the front floor brace came with it. It was not attached to the rocker at all. Once the body mount bolt was out the whole piece was free.

I separated the brace from what was left of the floor and cleaned it up. Luckily it is in real good shape and reusable!

After some scraping, a little grinding and some wire wheel time we have a clean brave. I still need to spend some time on the inside de-rusting.

The outside looks pretty good as is. There are no thin spots so this is good to go.
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BadAst. A Pro Touring style 1988 Astro with a full custom chassis, 509 BBC, TH400 w/ a gear vendors and a 9" w/ 3.75's.
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  #82  
Old 01-18-2020, 08:59 PM
astroracer astroracer is offline
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Looking at the rocker after I got the brace out of the way... You can see the upper rocker is very cratered and thin. The floor flange is all but gone and the A pillar reinforcement is pretty much non-existent.

After I got all of the rot removed. The outer had been replaced at some point, with a cap. The old outer is still there and it all needs to come out.

I worked through a bunch of "fixing it" scenarios in my head and the best one was to simply replace the entire rocker like Roger has been saying. This side I can justify doing that as the entire top of the rocker has issues.
The new piece won't be here until Friday but I have plenty to do in building patch panels for the lower pillar, the inside rocker reinforcement and a section of floor I removed as it was all holey and thin.
Here are a few pics as I was getting things gutted...

Looking back, down the length of the rocker. You can see some warping in the top of the rocker as it compares to the bottom of the door. There is some stuff going on there that I want to fix. I will try to get pics of it tonight.

Here is a shot of the section of toe board I removed.

I'll get busy fabbing the patch for this and the inner rocker/A pillar reinforcement tonight.
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Name: Mark
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BadAst. A Pro Touring style 1988 Astro with a full custom chassis, 509 BBC, TH400 w/ a gear vendors and a 9" w/ 3.75's.
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  #83  
Old 01-18-2020, 09:06 PM
astroracer astroracer is offline
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A little depressing yes, but it's all repairable...

Got home from work and beelined it straight out to the shop. Had a plan and stuck to it. Made a quick template for the floor patch out of card stock and set up the bead roller to turn the flange.
Didn't take any pics until the template was done and I had started on the patch itself.


Running the piece thru the tipping dies. This is 16ga so I could only tip it so far and the nylon roller didn't like the pressure.



I ended up finishing the bend on my metal bench. I also had to stretch the flanged edge a bit to bring the panel back to flat.

With the flange mostly done and the piece clecoed in.

Looking back at the patch from the front tire... I outlined the hole in the floor because I will trim the patch a 1/2" oversize and flange the edges to drop it flush with the toe board on the out side.

I will need to do some tweaking on the flange but I can wait and do that after the piece is welded in.
I also started developing the inner A pillar reinforcement patch.

This welds between the outer and inner rockers. I won't do much with this other then get an oversize piece trimmed out.

I can't fit it to the car until the outer is replaced and lower A pillar rebuilt.
Thanks for watching!
Mark
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BadAst. A Pro Touring style 1988 Astro with a full custom chassis, 509 BBC, TH400 w/ a gear vendors and a 9" w/ 3.75's.
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  #84  
Old 01-18-2020, 09:08 PM
astroracer astroracer is offline
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I spent some time in the shop the other day just looking and planning. With the new outer rocker I needed to figure out how I was going to replace it without disturbing the A pillar and, especially, the door alignment. I figured the best thing to do is to get the floor installed. At least get it to the point that it can be screwed in solid. The last couple of nights were spent removing the old floor and getting the inner rocker rot cleaned out.


Cleaning the rot of the rocker. There was not a lot of "finesse" used when these repairs were done... This would be embarrassing if I had done it...

The long center floor brace was attached to nothing. The metal that was in here was not welded to the brace...

This is "some" of the junk I have removed from the rocker. I still have to clean out the back, at the rear floor brace and wheel well but I ran out of steam tonight...

The new rocker came in today and it looks great! This will work much better then trying to patch and straighten that 64 year metal. Hopefully I can splice it in where that rats nest pictured above is at.


Next on the list is to finish cleaning out the rocker and getting the wire channel flange cleaned up to except the new floor.
Thanks for looking!
Mark
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BadAst. A Pro Touring style 1988 Astro with a full custom chassis, 509 BBC, TH400 w/ a gear vendors and a 9" w/ 3.75's.
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  #85  
Old 01-18-2020, 09:11 PM
astroracer astroracer is offline
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Shoveled snow this morning! It was pretty wet and heavy. Got done about noon so, after lunch, I headed out to the shop.
I got the rest of the inner rocker junk cut out along with what was left of the rear floor brace. Three spot welds were all that were holding all of that in.

I also cut off all of the floor flange that was left after I cut out the floor. The inner wall flange and back half of the floor is in really good shape. I have a bit of rust to fix in the wheel well but it's nothing compared to what I did on the passenger side...

I ran a flap disc around the floor opening to clean up where the new floor will weld in and ground down what was left of the spot welds on the middle floor brace.

Then I rolled the plasma cutter outside and trimmed the drivers floor so it will drop in place. It was spitting snow and sleet while I was doing this.


The pieces I won't be using.

Dropped the floor in, did some trimming to fit it around the seat pedestal, and got it close.



I got that done and called it a day. I was cold and I needed a shower to knock off all of the grit and dust I made when cleaning up the old metal...
I have some work to do to get the front of the floor snuggled down but I'll work on that tomorrow... Then I can start fitting the inner rocker and getting this stuff locked down for the outer replacement... I need to have this all locked in tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Thanks for watching!
Mark
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BadAst. A Pro Touring style 1988 Astro with a full custom chassis, 509 BBC, TH400 w/ a gear vendors and a 9" w/ 3.75's.
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  #86  
Old 01-18-2020, 09:14 PM
astroracer astroracer is offline
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All caught up! Last post for the night...
This is looking inside the outer rocker.

I will spend some time cleaning this up

The whole lower fender/rocker piece had been replaced back in the 80's I think. It is pretty tough inside but once I get it cleaned up and treated it should last a while longer... Right?
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BadAst. A Pro Touring style 1988 Astro with a full custom chassis, 509 BBC, TH400 w/ a gear vendors and a 9" w/ 3.75's.
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  #87  
Old 01-19-2020, 04:32 AM
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Gojeep Gojeep is offline
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You are making a lot of headway and doing much better than what was there before even when the first repairs were done!
Possible that the inner rocker has a lot of pitting looking at the photo, but you might be lucking that it is just dirt on top for the most of it.
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  #88  
Old 01-19-2020, 08:10 PM
astroracer astroracer is offline
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Thanks Marcus! I have a hard time understanding why the first repairs were done the way they were... The amount of time it took to do it crappy why not take another 10 minutes and do it right?
The rear of that rocker may be getting replaced as well as the front. I was fitting in the new inner rocker today and am not liking the way it "doesn't" line up with the bottom of the outer at the back... Pics below...

The floor is fit in and screwed down as of today.



The inner rocker is in place and the fit at the bottom of the outer, at the back, is questionable to say the least...
Looking rearward from under the car..

The floor fit to the middle brace is perfect, as is the middle brace to inner rocker.

This is the rear cross car brace I trimmed off. I will clean this up and fit the splice to the inner like I did the other side.

I am also building a locator for the front lower fender bolt. just some angle that will bolt and weld in so I can position the front of the new rocker where it needs to be.
Pic is from the tire side looking down.

Looking at the body mount bracket from underneath. I will tack this short piece of angle to the bracket. This will lock the location of the bolt down to the car.

Mark
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BadAst. A Pro Touring style 1988 Astro with a full custom chassis, 509 BBC, TH400 w/ a gear vendors and a 9" w/ 3.75's.
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