Started tearing apart my 71 convertible and found rusty floors and trunk, all of the floor braces and trunk braces are gone along with inner rockers. Right or wrong, I am going to redo the car. Right now I'm not sure where to start. I can't take the car off of the frame or it will fall apart, outer rockers are all that is holding the front and back together, (except for trans tunnel) or should I do the quarters and rockers on the frame, weld braces in the door areas and then put on rotiseere and do floors and trunk.

Any and all opinions would be greatly appreciated.

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GARY
71 SS 454
71 Malibu Convertible
T.C. Gold #56
ACES #2412
G.A.C.C. #027
www.chevelles.com/showroom/Gary1.jpg (http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/Gary1.jpg)

My Impala was in very similar shape to what yours is. What I did was repair the floors and the inner rockers with the body on the frame, then lifted the body to finish the work.

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Mat Ellison
Lincoln, Ne
70 SS 396 Chevelle
62 Impala Sport Coupe
2001 Grand Prix GT
Aces #2424

Maybe the purpose of your life is to only serve as a warning to others?

www.angelfire.com/amiga/elliboom (http://www.angelfire.com/amiga/elliboom)

Any and all sheet metal replacement needs to be done on the frame PERIOD. You remove the car from the frame and put it on a rotissere that will car bow in the middle the second you start cutting. No car has the strengh to be put on one of those and start having panels cut off, especially a convert.

Start with the floors get back the strengh of the car. If need be weld braces across the door openings but you need to X them across to each door. If you weld braces just across the door openings the car can still twist, but if you X the braces from one door opening to the other you elinmate that.

In order to replace the floors, braces and inners you MUST lift the car off the frame. Now lifting just means get it high enough where you can remove those parts, I used 4x4 places across the frame in three spots. One in the front under the cowl, one in the middle and the other right before the back wheel.

I would start with the inners first, you cant buy them after market but any sheet metal supplier can bend that since its just one simple 90 bend at the top. very carefully remove the brace from the inner remove the welds but cut of the brace. If you remove the welds and not the brace you can algin the inner to brace and rocker and get its proper position much faster, because you have two alginment points instead of one. Once you got the inners where you want them screw them to the rocker with sheet metal screw or tack weld it but since you are gonna remove the rocker I would just srcew it.

With any panel replacement the more you have to align it to the faster and easier it goes in. So what I do when doing floors is start with the braces. Very carefully remove one brace, remove the welds DONT just cut it out along with the floor. Now take and place the new brace up to the old floor and align it to where it welded to the inners and the floor. You more then likey will have to bang the brace around alittle to make it fit right, but make sure it fits snug to the old floor. Now that the new brace fits right to the old floor and inners srcew it to the inners and floor, with a few tack welds not many cause you might need some minor readjustment later. Now remove the other brace in the same manner and replace it with the new one.

Ok now that the braces and inners are done you can start on the floor boards. The best method I have found when doing them is replace one half of the floor at a time. that way you can align it to the braces and the other old floor half, its cuts down on time trying to figure out where it should be. So remove one floor half at a time. With the old half gone align the new half to the braces and old floor. Once again make sure that the floor fits the braces snugly. Once you have the new floor half where you like it screw it down in place. Now remove the remaining half and align it to the braces and the new floor. Once that is in position start welding everything in place.

Its better to have the componets screwed in place when fitting parts so if you need to move it you can just unscrew it and not have to remove a bunch of welds.

Do the trunk floor in the same manner. Only put the car on a rotissre to do finish work like final girnding of the welds. NEVER ever have the car on those and start removing parts it can and will F*** it up in a hurry and be damn near impossible to fix.

If you want Gary drop me a line I can do a more detailed desription and include some pics, as one of my 70's the only original metal on the car is the roof...Eric

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1970 chevelle
1970 chevelle SS455 not a typo its a buick baby
1949 and 1972 chevy trucks
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/sevt_chevelles

Thanks Mat and Eric.

Eric, that is pretty much the sequence that I had decided to use, but is nice to have someone agree that has done the same thing. I looked at the pictures in your album and thought I was looking into a crystal ball! I need to do everything shown in the pictures, you didn't happen to video the process did you? http://www.chevelles.com/forum/wink.gif

Where are you at in Iowa? I'm about 30 miles from Keokuk and will going up to Fort Dodge in a couple of weeks. If time allows I could stop by.

Gary


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GARY
71 SS 454
71 Malibu Convertible
T.C. Gold #56
ACES #2412
G.A.C.C. #027
www.chevelles.com/showroom/Gary1.jpg (http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/Gary1.jpg)

maybe i could help you ou6t a little. i live in algona 40 miles north of ft.dodge. i know where there is a 71 2door hardtop sitting for sale pretty cheap. good parts. i was lucky enogh to find a 68 very little rust with 2 new fenders [gm] gauge cluster with a 6500 redline tach, ss hood, 454 in pieces for 1500 couldn't pass it up. especially here in iowa.

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fast as fast can be!!!
1966 chevelle malibu454 4 speed

1968 chevelle malibu 454 th400

1981 firebird formula

[This message has been edited by bradford (edited 11-05-2002).]

Gary Iam in Clarion Iowa which is right on hiway 3 on the west side of I35. Clarion is around 35 mins north and east of fort dodge. Sorry no video but did think about it.

I get to Dodge pretty regularly as I know lots of rodders and body shops from the Dodge area.

Bradford how cheap is cheap on that 71 I might be interested...Eric

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1970 chevelle
1970 chevelle SS455 not a typo its a buick baby
1949 and 1972 chevy trucks
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/sevt_chevelles