Why even make them? I think thats how it goes, right?

My original plan was to buy the car and drive it around and enjoy it. Wrong - the car shook, engine stuttered, the pedals were all wobbly and kind of scary.

Then I just wanted to rebuild the pedal box and balance the carbs. But the car was in NJ and I was in VA. When I finally got the car to VA I remembered that I was concerned about the low oil pressure at idle. It was November so I thought I would just rebuild the engine as a winter project. Wrong again - jack stands went through the frame rail.

Ok (gulp) just dive in, that's easy enough, just replace the frame rail. And then it roared in - like an M12 in full qualifying trim - the undeniable, irreverent, diabolical thought: "While you're in there you might as well.." It finally got to the point where it's like, you might as well what? The car is down to bare metal for Pete's sake! There are literally no more might as well's left on this car. And then of course there's the realization that comes along with such thought: "Who the f$*# is gonna pay for all this s$!"

So while my most recent bout of skewed plans is small comparatively, I do feel like it put a damper on my progress.

I wanted to prep and prime the rocker panel area before moving on to the frame rail, but a combination of weather and poor time management (see MildSeven's entry "Behind The Scenes") meant that that would have to wait until I have a few nice days so I can procrastinate for the first before actually painting on the second.

But I did start on the frame rail, and got pretty far, too.

I decided that the frame rails would be made from 1/8" steel verticals (but this is a metric car! Get over it.) and bridged with 16 gauge steel. I figure, if I'm going to replace them, a jack stand better not buckle them again.

I started by making a contour cutout from cardboard and fitting it to the floor pan.

Then I transferred the contour to the 1/8" steel and cut it out. Test fit, modify, repeat until I was happy with the fit.

I then tacked it in place from what would be the inside of the frame rail (kind of important).

I took some 16 gauge steel and cut it into a 3/4" wide strip and tacked this to what would be the outside of the frame rail.

Then I pulled down the parts and ground off the tack welds from the bottom of the floor pan. I drilled some holes in my 16 gauge flange for plug welds and painted the whole thing with weld through primer.

Then I cut the profile that best represented the original shape to the best of my ability and welded it in place.

I tried to keep everything as tight to the floor pan as possible while welding it in but it was difficult. I did have to break a few tack welds and push the flange in to the pan with a screw driver while i tacked it back in place.

For the driver side, I will definitely be taking more time to do this. It didn't come out too badly, but I think I could have done a better job.

The verticals do not follow the floor pan contours exactly, but that is where the flange comes in and the fillet weld. These things are not moving that's for sure.

Then I mocked up the bridge between the two verticals with cardboard, cut out the steel to fit and welded it in.

Since the 1/8" steel is so thick, I used that as the base metal to start the weld pool and drag it onto the thinner 16 gauge steel. So my 16 gauge bridge sat inside the verticals, not on top of them.

The welds came out pretty nice. Everything is solid and there isn't much pitting, especially for using flux core. I'm saving for the MIG bottle but Christmas isn't making it easy.

Before I button up the frame rail I'll be spraying the inside with Eastwood Internal Frame Coating

It's got great reviews so why not give it a whirl. The tube and nozzle is 24" so I wont be able to reach the end if I close it up now.

I'm kind of skeptical about the whole tube nozzle thing. I guess we'll find out!

Cheers!

Pete