Giulia TI floors – half done
Finally a spare afternoon! I was able to finish the passenger side today, at least the metal-work part of it, and celebrated by taking a quick drive around the neighborhood. This car is so fun to drive, it’ll be great when it’s fun AND comfortable.
Today’s exercise was more or less a repeat of the last time. I have no delusions now of anything being easy or particularly good. I do have delusions that exterior panels will be easier to work on, being on the exterior and all, but at least I can leave good enough alone for the floors.
Fitting the big piece. I left the weird corner piece out on the first pass; consider that a lesson learned from doing the front job.
Of course getting that corner piece in was the bulk of the work, especially considering its proximity to the gas and brake lines (!) Here’s the finished product:
All in all a better job, but still lots of room for improvement.
The weld spots you see in the center of the panel are from the straps that connect the frame with the floor panel. I figured it was cheap insurance to weld these up while I was under the car.
So, now I need to figure out how to prime and seal this up so the rust won’t work its way back, at least not during my ownership of the car. I’m thinking a liberal dose of POR 15 and some truck bedliner or similarly thick and gummy material, top and bottom, ought to suffice. But first, the driver side. Stay tuned for that in a future post.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
You’re almost ready to start welding on my Spider!
May 17th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Dood! I thought that gear was collecting cobwebs! good job buddy!
Daniel Benoit just got his first taste of welding this weekend. he patched his Volvo up nice. I think exterior panels are only about twice as hard as the floors, but we’ll let you decide.