My rocker repair/replacement

A pillar repair.jpg
Starting to weld...I have no finished pictures but it looks just like the original, down to the triangle shaped part at the bottom.
 
You'll recall my B pillar support was bent near the bottom. I borrowed a stud welder and slide hammer but that didn't work, the studs pulled right off. Then I put a bottle jack behind the bent metal and tried to push it out. Nope.

Then...it hit me! Just cut out the bent metal, straighten it off the car and weld it back in.

Before-

B pillar bent.jpg
 
I cut off the bottom of the remaining original B pillar support and welded the new piece in. It's the W&N repro piece and it fit well, but required some massaging to match up to the original.

B pillar support.jpg
 
And from the front. You'll notice I haven't ground the welds all the way down yet. I've learned it's very easy to make the metal too thin, even though it looks nice. The quarter panel covers most of this and the rest is covered by the aluminum trim....I'll likely leave them there.

B pillar 2.jpg
 
wow thats UUUGGGGLYYY
GOOD SAVE!!!
its amazing to me how bad these cars get
and how many people have had to do this kind of thing
it must be near 80% of the coupes have had this kind of thing done
luckily my came literally rust free when i got it back in 86.
and i was able to keep it 99 percent up to snuff
 
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OK, the work continues. The W&N outer rocker fit is a little off in spots and will need some fettling...but it can be done.

Before I get to that I wanted to have the door done so I can pop it on and check the fit as I go through next steps. That meant the replacement skin had to be put on. The original door skin had lost the mid character line.

Start peeling back at the edges...Rust! Who knew?

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The only rust through on the door frame was at the top of the outer edge. This was cut out and replaced with flat stock from Lowe's.

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I used a hammer and dolly around the door edges and got the skin mounted.

I taped the rear quarter patch in place to check alignment. The blue square in the middle of the red is a wrap sample I put on...it's close but not close enough.

IMG_1154.jpg
 
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Now I know I have my character line back, and it's going to line up between the door and the quarter. Also, the door gaps are pretty good with the new door skin and there is no more rust in the door. So I can get back to that rocker knowing when it all comes together permanently there are no surprises waiting.

And for fun, what the other side of the car looks like...

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Wow...almost 2 years since my last update! Work stopped for almost that amount of time but I'm back at it.

The outer rocker needed to be mounted, plug welded top and bottom and then some seam welding across the top edge.

I mentioned the fit on the outer rocker was not great...

IMG_1001.JPG
 
Backtrack on drilling out spot welds. I chose to buy groups of 10 drill bits at Harbor Freight when I was removing panels. Drill out 10 or 15 welds, throw out the bit.

Problem is that leaves a bunch of holes in the remaining metal. This is the view of the bottom of the inner rocker with the holes, you can see the intermediate above it.

Enter the copper backer...it lets you use the welder to fill the holes but the weld won't stick to the copper.

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