The inners originally had a large access hole for the factory spot weld and assembly tooling, much like the interface of the inner rocker to torque box. I eliminated that for strength purposes. Here I'm fitting a backer plate for my final inner frame plate to attach to along with the butt weld.
There we go, nice and solid.
Next is rebuilding the dogleg support for the trans X-member.
The dogleg brace for the trans X-member had rotted off. We salvaged the rear plate that the X-member attaches to, we located the piece, suspended from the bottom of the car with temporary tacks, rods etc, then built a new brace arm.
We're currently about 1/3 of the way through with the same tasks on the other side of the car.
That Ranchero must have lots of Sentimental value for somebody...
Husband and wife brought it to me, super nice people. It was the wife's father's car. He ordered it new, she drove it in high school.
As you can see, a paint job wasn't going to make this car OK to drive. It simply wasn't safe, it will be though. I guarantee this forward structure is stronger now than it was from the factory. As I'm building my way out of these structural boxes, I'm closing access holes that were necessary for factory tooling access for resistance welds. Nothing is obviously beefed up when it's all closed up, its fairly discrete, subtle improvements that are worth doing when I've got it cut apart.
Teen spirit pretty good background music for starting up that new beast
To hell with a car restoration Dave can you weld me up some and make me better than new?
On a serious note, I know it takes time & additional labor, but including pix or videos of the work done for your clients with their cars would be a nice value added touch imo
I'm pretty certain when we sing our anthem and mention the land of the free, the original intent didn't mean cell phones, food stamps and birth control.