More surprises, more cutting, more welding, and a LOT more grinding!

Well it's been over 25 years since I did my botch job repairs on this car in high school so I shouldn't be shocked when I find yet another surprise that needs major repair.  At least by now I'm getting better (and faster) at fabricating these things!

So I was getting ready to replace the rear dog leg on the passenger side because I actually found the origonal replacement panel on ebay.  Here's what I found...

First let's pull up the old bondo...this was a little worse than I remember but hey I can work with this...



Now you can see why I needed to replace the dog leg.  This didn't looks so bad at first glance either.



Now remove the layers of undercoating from the wheel well and umm...well I didn't expect that but ok.





Now to cut out and fit the replacement dog leg panel... Oh hell...really!?  LOL



The vibrations from cutting out what was left of the dog leg caused a lot of the rust to just fall off...







I try to laugh at all this as I shake my head and wonder... What's next?

Isn't there a saying somewhere that goes something like "Never ask a question when you don't want to know the answer?"  ROFL  More on that later...

All right then, time to get started fabricating and fitting the replacements for all this...

First the floor under the rear seat.



Now on to the wheel well.





In case you missed it, there's a hidden support in there behind the wheel well that's rotted out.  Remember my comment about not asking questions unless you want the answer!?



Time for more cutting.  Oh joy!





I've ordered another dog leg panel for a 59 Chevy that I'm going to cut up and use to replace some of this but I'm still going to need to fabricate a lot of it.  Wish me luck!

Jackpot baby!  Woohoo!  These are going to save me a LOT of work.  

The small replacement panel is the 59 Pontiac dog leg part # DL55AR & DL55AL, though I still say it was for a '60 due to slight differences in the fender flare.

The large panel is the FULL dog leg replacement panel for a 59 Chevy part # DL42AR & DL42AL.  I want to thank Jim and AJ at VintagePartsClub.com for these.

The only diffference between them is the fender flare.

My plan:  Cut the fender flare off the 59 Chevy panel to relace the section of the inner door that I was dreading trying to fabricate, then I can weld the 59 Pontiac dog leg in place.  Give me a few days and I'll show you what I mean but for now here's what I've got.

Ok then...

When I cut out more of the metal around the door for the new Chevy replacement panel I found what I expected.  The sections of the inner support where it was spot welded to the wheel well and the door frame were rusted out.  More cutting...more welding...more grinding...  That is the theme here right?  LOL

Here's what it looks like now.  Don't adjust your screen. There really is a blue tint from the etching solution I used to prep this for POR-15.



I still have some trimming to do on the Chevy replacement panel but here is the Chevy panel with the fender flare cut off next to the Pontiac dog leg.



And here are both panels screwed together for a test fit.  The alignment at the top is off a bit but that's easily fixable.



Now close the door and... sweetness!  Mind you this is just sitting in place and I still have a little trimming to do but its coming together very nicely.  :-)

Soooo close but the trick or treater's kept me busy tonight.

Close enough!  The dog leg is tack welded to the rear quater panel and loose at the bottom for when I put in the rocker panels.  I've sprayed this with self etching primer to prevent flash rusting.



I will probably have a professional install the rear quarter panels once I have everything else done.  My welding skills are no where close to doing this myself right now.  There's 3 different part numbers written on this and I can't remember which one was correct for the 59 pontiac.  I think... the part number was RFP60R & RFP60L.  Yes, I have the left and right.