Continued - Part 5
While doing much of the work with this side of the car tilted up, I had stashed a few of the other tools I was using inside the driver side rocker panel tunnel, since it made a handy "tray" to keep things in nearby. I accidentally dropped my small chisel when pulling a different tool out, & the chisel fell straight down into the inner rocker panel & stuck in perpendicular. Oh, crap. I knew what that meant - rusty metal too thin to support anything. I pulled the chisel out, then got my screwdriver to tap the area looking for any other too-thin spots. Hoping it was just a small, confined spot, I found it wasn't. 7 spots in a row, & 2 more a little further forward, the screwdriver went right through the rusty metal as I tapped. Almost the entire length of the lower edge of the driver side
inner rocker panel is toast. Dammit!
This find will definitely set me back a bit in time & $$. I've seen repro inner rocker panel replacements available, so getting one isn't really a problem, just costly. But in order to replace this panel, or even part of it, the entire driver side left (outer) seat rail mounting perch will need to be removed first. And of course it's spotwelded to the floor
and the inner rocker, so all those welds will need to be drilled out first. Not much I can do about that area right now. I'll have to put the car back down on its wheels before I can crawl inside & inspect that seat perch & see if there are any other options (though I'm thinking there aren't).
More time put in working on the Coupe; a few hours Sunday evening & a few more on Monday night. I finished scraping the undercoat from the rest of the passenger side of the floor, as well as most of the underbody section just behind the central floor tunnel (where all the cables & coolant tubes exit the tunnel). I left some of the passenger side rear footwell alone, since I'll be cutting out that piece of rotted metal anyway (this is the dark rectangle with the big hole in it seen in the photos below).
I also re-surveyed & marked the areas where rust-perforated metal needs to be removed (cut out) from the floors; these are the areas seen outlined with a black marker pen with a big "X" drawn through them:
Floor rust-through spot at the front corner of the driver-side left seat rail/support (with the rusty end of the floor crossmember seen to the right). Most of the holes here are due to the OCD previous owner drilling 9(
!) screws through the floor in order to hold down this corner of the carpet & the homemade floor mat. They were crappy, non-galvanized screws that rusted heavily, spreading their cancer to the floor itself. Some of the rusty sheetmetal crumbled away when I was removing the screws earlier, causing the larger holes visible here:
Close-up shot of the rusty end of the floor crossmember, which I'll be cutting out & replacing with a fabricated replica. In this photo, I've already drilled out almost all of the spotwelds as needed, with the remaining single spotweld at the top left corner yet to be drilled. After that, all that's left to do is to cut straight across/through the crossmember along the horizontal line (black marker pen) seen near the bottom of the photo, then pull the rusted end piece away & replace it with its new (yet to be fabricated) twin. I'm hoping the floor rust won't be too bad underneath this area (fingers crossed)...
Another rust-perforated spot, this one just behind the driver-side left seat rail/support (with floor crossmember visible on left). Besides the 2 obvious holes seen in the center of the X-ed area, there are lots of tiny pinholes here that can't be seen in the photo. This spot was rusted through from the
inside of the car (due to standing water), with the metal being so thin & weak that I could push it in & out with just a finger.
The 3 spotwelds seen drilled out on the right side of that particular section are (I later realized) a possible mistake - I probably shouldn't have drilled these yet, as I might need that part (the thin, shiny vertical strip of metal) for floor support when I remove & replace the larger rusted section of metal just below & to the right. I re-drew the vertical black line slightly to the left afterwards, to remind myself of the overlap/interplay of these panels & their future replacements.
The previously-noted section seen at the upper left, with the driver side rear footwell in the lower center of the photo. Besides having the large gaping hole in it, this footwell also suffered from interior rust-through & lots of tiny pinholes everywhere (again, from standing/pooled water, a common issue in this area on 850 Coupes). I found it would be far easier to just replace one large piece rather than make a bunch of small repairs, so I'm following the original factory lines of the panel for ease of replacement & a cleaner repair afterwards.
Rough horizontal cut-lines are marked, spotwelds are all drilled out along the left, spotwelds on the right are either cut with a chisel or have already been rusted/torn apart. The 2 large triangular holes to the left are factory floor drain holes, with 1 of the triangle cover-tabs broken off. I found it stuck in the tar I removed from the floor earlier & saved it to be welded back in place later. The crumpled/folded rear wall of the footwell (seen on right) will be straightened back into OEM shape before fitting the replacement floor piece.
At this point, my back was bothering me a bit (unrelated injury earlier in the day), so I opted to leave the passenger side rear footwell for another day and work on something a little higher on the car (so I'm standing up while working). The front end of the outer rocker panel still needed attending to, so that was my next job. I needed to remove what was left of the outer panel (the rest of the panel being previously cut away), but had found some unknown-to-me support structure behind it inside the rocker tunnel. Looking at various diagrams in my factory parts book, I found that this "support structure" was actually the lower part of the A-post/door hinge support panel - I definitely
don't want to cut that out!
I first drilled out the 4 remaining spotwelds holding the lower lip of the outer rocker in place, then carefully trimmed a horizontal line at the top, next to the seam joining the rocker panel & the lower front fender corner. In theory, this
should have released the outer panel remnant with no issues, but alas, no. After a bit of investigation, I found there were 3 more spotwelds to deal with, these holding the outer rocker directly to the base of the lower A-post support. With these 3 spotwelds drilled out, the outer panel remnant came right off, revealing the hidden structure beneath it.
Before:
After:
With the day's allotted work-time now run out & the dinner bell ringing loudly (in my head), it's time to clean up & head home for the night...
(To be continued...)