Cutting and measuring-in the new Trunk Floor

The new replacement floorpan needed to be cut and fit into place before welding. This was quite painstaking to get a neat and tight fit.. The pics show the cut through the existing floorpan exposing the transmission mounting beam..


















I put-in, took-out, put-in, took-out, put-in, took-out the replacement pan..(get the point!?)..to make sure it fit perfectly; shaving of micrometres of steel until the floor fit neatly.















While the inside of the 'transmission mount beam' was exposed, I took the opportunity of cleaning it out properly and rust-protecting it with epoxy mastic..

Removing Original Trunk Floor Remnants

Another killer job...drilling and grinding out the final remnants of the original trunk floor..aghh! So first I had to clear out the previous owner's bodge floor just to get to the rusted-out factory floor..then clear all that up. Ahhh..'tis done now, ready for the next stage of the new floor going in.

Here's a pic of the tight corner with no sign of the original floor. It was impossible not to do a little damage with the spot drill and grinder but I'll weld over any little holes and grind them clean.

Tow Bracket and Bumper Mounts - clean up!

The re-inforceing brackets for the bumper mounts aswell as the Tow-Eye bracket were in a bad way following the former owner's bodge 'fix' of the trunk floor. I reckoned it was best to just cut them out and 'start again' - bearing in mind I will be using lighter fibre-glass bumpers anyway for the GT 'look'; home-made replacement brackets will probably be better.
















So here you can see I cut the brackets out and patched-in new metal. This will need to be further re-inforced before I weld in the new floor and get the shell onto the rotisserie - as the rotisserie will be fixed to the shell at this point. I can't see how the weight of the shell can be supported by the single layer of the patch without damage..


















Watch this space and you'll understand what I'm blabbering on about...!

Rear Panel Patch Repair - Final Weld

I put tack welds between the Clecos..then took them out and finished the weld around the entire patch...

I know I know...still some shoddy weld work! But I realised I hadn't set up the wire feed on the welder correctly so it wasn't feeding the wire smoothly. Basically the wire reel was getting snagged so the wire was being fed erratically making it really tricky to weld neatly...honest!!! I fixed it so the last few welds worked fine. I'm getting better - nearly ready to fit the wheel arch flares on!

The whole job is given a coat of Primer to keep the rust off. I'll grind the welds off and clean it all up after I've fitted the Trunk Floor which is the next job.

Rear Panel Patch Repair - inserting Clecos

I spent ages filing the edges of the 'window' in the rear panel to get the Patch to sit inside it neatly. That was actually the hardest and most time consuming part! My arms are aching from it writing this post! - still, the better the prep work the easier the job will be to finish and better the outcome..

Once the Patch fitted neatly, I temporarily clamped it in place with G and C Clamps.

















I drilled 2.5mm holes at roughly 8cm intervals right at the join line.














The 3/32" Clecos were inserted and closed using M2.5 washers on the inside of the patch.


I used about 20 or so Clecos for the entire patch.

Next Weld Repair continued...

...so to it. I cut out a 'patch' in 18swg (1.2mm thick) mild-steel 100cm x 8cm - making sure it was square with straight edges! Then using it as a template, I scored around it on the car itself - then cut a window to drop the patch in.

Next Weld Repair with Clecos

Cleco clamps are brilliant. They're basically tiny spring loaded clamps used for temporarily fixing panels together to be welded. Normally you use them for overlap joints - drill a hole through both pieces and insert the Cleco which will clamp them together before welding. But I've used them differently here to do a Butt joint.

The rear panel in the picture needed some love. The previous owner had half finished a nasty trunk repair with a steel sheet and some seriously bodged welding. I'm a novice welder but this guy was a real hack!

























These pics show the state of the rear most panel after I'd cleaned it up a bit. It's got some rust holes too so it needs to come out and be replaced before the new trunk floor goes in.