And a '78

[79cord]

On to the right side.

looks a little better than the left.


Area removed to look inside

So just as bad as left inside


New lower plate made up and welded in after cleaning & painting inside sill.


New metal for hinge mounting reinforcement was welded in after that.
Then some of the metal I removed earlier was welded back in after trimming away the rustier bits, these replaced with more fresh metal.
Thankfully the holes in more obvious areas of the sill were small enough to weld closed without adding new sheetmetal.


Welds ground back & primed



I also noticed that the front springs seem to have been cut, having 4 3/4 coils instead of 5 1/2 of other springs I have,
and they don't seem to be located quite as well as they could be, sitting a bit off-centre in their seats.


So not sure if I should add an inner ring to the spring seat one day to try & position the springs better.

[JSmythe]

Few Questions:
1. What kind of Welder are you using? Mig? (I would think stick/arc would blow through the sheet steel)
2. What are you using to grind for initial inspection? Wire Brush?
3. What are you using to prep the surface and prevent more rust?
4. Name and Brand of Primer?
5. Using a cut off wheel to remove the problem steel?

This is looking real good. Nice work and Thanks for the pics. They're worth a thousand words.

I have the feeling I am going to be needing to do a little of this pretty soon and would rather not be a guinea pig for products.

[79cord]

Yes an old CIG brand 130a MIG welder (at least 15 years old, bought 2nd hand), with C02/Argon shielding gas.
Stripping off the old paint & rust with a wire knot wheel fitted to my 100mm Makita angle grinder

and major cutting with a 1mm cutting disc.

I'm not even sure of the rust neutralizer/converter that I am using. Most about seem to use phosphoric or tannic acid.
I'm using some zinc primer afterwards but since primers are usually somewhat porous I'm not completely confident of that either so have also bought some expensive ($65/L) Rust-seal paint by KBS coatings supposedly equivalent to POR15 (which is apparently even more $ here & not widely distributed)


Hope it works as claimed.

[Dr_Snooz]

Hope it works as claimed.

Dude, it's the Rust Annihilator. How can you go wrong?

[PDXAccord79]

I did the bay and the front inner fenders with POR-15 and the stuff is indestructible once applied. You can beat it with a hammer and it won't come off. Note that it can't stand up to UV well so spray it with some chassis black or prime it after it dries. Great work here!

[Dr_Snooz]

At the price it costs, it should hold up to a nuclear meltdown.

[gp02a0083]

I did the bay and the front inner fenders with POR-15 and the stuff is indestructible once applied. You can beat it with a hammer and it won't come off. Note that it can't stand up to UV well so spray it with some chassis black or prime it after it dries. Great work here!

the POR-15 is really good stuff, I've used it on my cutty's doors to keep them from rotting and the back section of my last hatchback. Its so good you can wear that paint for weeks lol. I'll second that this stuff dries rock solid