Driver's Side Floor Repair - Done...for now.

Work on the fastback was rather segmented over the weekend.   I had a meeting scheduled late in the week on Saturday at Noon.  So, since Saturday is supposed to be my one "day off" each week, I decided to take off Friday afternoon, a flexibility I fortunately have, to work on the driver's floor...again.  I'm not even going to try and figure out how many hours I have in this repair because it's not about the time, but the investment in bringing a classic Mustang back to life...not to mention the "therapy" it provides for me.


At the last exciting episode, I had finished up for the most part the floor to transmission tunnel seam.  I had problems with blow / burn through around the emergency brake cable bracket.  I was chasing the hole as I attempted to stitch it shut.   I couldn't get my copper backup into position due to not having a good method to hold it there, short of asking my wife to lay under the car and hold it there (she was at work).  I made the decision to cut out the area of the floor with the blow / burn through.   But on the first try, I didn't make the patch big enough thinking that I could weld around the spot weld drill hole.  That didn't work at all. I decided to quit before I made things worse....

So I made a bigger cut to remove the entire e-bracket instead of trying to leave it in place.  You can see the failed patch attempt, the bigger new hole,  and the bracket below... 

I made a patch using a cardboard template and then transferring it to a piece of scrap floor pan metal I'd cut away previously while trimming up the floor pan....

After cutting out the patch and doing the trimming and forming to fit the hole, I welded a scrap to it so I could hold it into position...

This was working much better.  I started the tacking process and then removed the "helper" piece of metal...

I continued to do the typical spot--cool--grind routine until the repaired area looked like this...

It didn't look too bad.  But work came to a screeching halt because the air regulator in my compressed air line decided to go on the fritz and I couldn't control the pressure for my air tools.  Bugger.  Then the torpedo heater started to spit and sputter as it does just before it runs out of K-1.   I shut it down and when to add some more Kerosene, but there was only a gallon in the container.  Double bugger.   So that ended Friday's work, which took a couple of hours by the time I got set up with heat and everything ready to start work... and then the work itself... and then the clean-up, especially since I promised to take my wife out to dinner after a challenging week at work for both of us.

Saturday morning brought a nice coating of about 1" of sleet with another 1" to 2" of snow on top of that.  I roll out of the drive at 6:30 AM and head to Starbucks and then the church to pick up where I left off at Noon on Friday.   After my meeting was over I stopped and filled up my 5 gallon kerosene container.  Then I headed back home to deal with the air regulator.   I took it off the air line and headed to Lowes (it was a Kobalt brand regulator) where I bought it.  They didn't have one in stock, but the store 20 minutes away had 3 in stock.  So off to the other Lowes I went.  With a new regulator in hand (they exchanged it even with no receipt!) I headed home.  But by this time, it was 5:30 PM and I was hungry and tired.  So I called it a day.

Now it's Sunday afternoon.  After a couple of visits to families after church, I got home around 3 PM.  The heater was running and I was ready to go to work.  But then I get a call from one of the church members who now lives in Atlanta, but his daughter still lives in the area.  She went to a national parts store (which shall remain nameless) to get a headlight replaced in her Kia Rondo.  They couldn't do it.  So he asked me if I could help.  She came over and, thanks to a really dumb design, it took about 20 minutes to troubleshoot what said parts store had messed up and find out what bulb she needed.  She went and got the correct bulb, and then another 20 minutes to get it installed.  With all headlights now working, I sent her on her way.   So I got back to work on the fastback around 4 PM.
 
The work left on the floor amounted to finishing up some unfinished tacks along the transmission tunnel and the seam at the rear of the floor pan.   Here is the finished result...

I know it's not the prettiest metal finishing job, but the seat riser flange is going to cover it up.   Then I cleaned up the surface of the floor with a stripping pad on my 4" grinder, did some more metal filling and grinding, and got to the point where I've done about all I can on the floor from the inside of the car.   So here is what it looks like now...

I'm going to wait to put the seat riser in until I finish up the floors on the underside.   So now I'm ready to move to the next big step...getting it ready for the rotisserie.   I have to put it on jack stands and pull the tires.  Then take the front and rear suspension off along with the passenger-side door.   It's been a long, long time coming to get to this point.   Hopefully, once I get it on the rotisserie, I can make some good progress and get the underside metal work done once and for all.   I better stop and pick up a case of "PB Rust Blaster" and start soaking all of those suspension nuts and bolts for the next week or so.   Maybe that will help disassembly go easier, but as history has proven, I'm not counting on it.