I'm in the process of replacing my trunk floors. While in the process, I thought I would clean up the part of the body behind the rear of the pan. The rust is worse than I thought and it seems like I'm constantly chasing "worm holes" that keep blowing through. I guess my question is - Does anyone make a replacement panel for the rusted out (half-a** repaired) section in the pics below? Or should I just keep welding/grinding/welding/grinding until things look good? Should I look for somthing off of a donor car? As always, thank you all for your help.

Kevin

Welcome to the world of restorations. I took out the trunk pan of mine because the windshield was cracked! It snowballed from there to a full frame off. The new trunk is in, and slowly coming back together, but then I have the quarters, wells, and floor to do<G>

Hang tough, it will end someday.

Trunk pan kit's usually come in three sections a right,left,and center section. Maybe you could buy just the section you need. Then cut it down to repair that section. Good luck on your repairs.

This is the section that is behind the trunk pan (between the tail lights). I've already purchased the three piece trunk pan kit; I want to fix this before I put the floors in the trunk. You can see in one of the pics that I cut an access panel to get at the rust. I tried to cut it all out but the metal is heavily pitted throughout that whole area. Just to be clear, the half-a** repair was started by me, lol. With a lot of welding and grinding it might turn out okay, but I thought there might be an easier way to replace this section rather than try to patch it up. Guess it's back to the grinder (but not until this weekend).

Looks like your doing a good job. Grid her down and cover with a little Por-15.

Chasing those pinholes and blowouts while your welding, the metal is so thin its hard to do. If you can get some metal in behind it, concentrate your weld on the new metal, and let it flow into the old.

Sometimes you need to just cut a slash through the old metal to be able to get some new metal in there. Heres this. http://www.1969supersport.com/blweld.html

The other way that has worked for me, is to cut little pieces of new metal and lay it right over top, then weld that with your weld concentrated on the new metal, and again let it flow into the old metal.

A guy will think that it will stick out and not look good, but once you grind the welds down, you'll never see it.

It seems like a lot of extra work to cut those little pieces to patch in, but once you weld on it you can see how much stronger the area will be.

Rob

I don't know if you have one of these, but if you don't and can get one, just drill a hole big enough to get it started you can make some surgical:)cuts down in there, then the new metal pieces.


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Rob

Heres a little better picture.




http://www.1969supersport.com/flrpn22.jpg

Me again, the area you are working in, I know its hard to get at, but if you can stand back and look at it, you can see the different angles and radius's. Then just get a rough measurement of one small section of it, then go over and cut a piece, make a couple of bends, then trial fit it, when you think its close enough, cut it out and weld it in.

Again, concentrate your weld on the new piece, and let it flow into the old.

This is hard for me to explain right, but if you look at this dog carrier fiasco, http://www.1969supersport.com/dog1.html you will see a couple small square pieces of sheet metal that I bent into a half moon shape, and this is quite a bit thicker then the sheet metal you will be working with.

So by trial and error you can duplicate that metal area.

Anyway, just trying to point out, that a little bit of cutting and hammering, a guy can make these sections out of new metal.

I know when I weld on this old sheet metal and start blowing holes, I really get aggravated:), this piece meal way of patching it will get rid of that aggravation, and when you put the first piece in, you will feel better about it.

Rob

Thanks for all your replies. Rob - thanks for taking the time to link in all that information. I will try your suggestions this weekend. I'll post pictures of the results - hopefully it will look respectable.

Kevin

Rob always has some great tips, but rather then trying to peice together a mural of molested metal I'd look for a decent donor car. It would make your life much easier.

Contact John, member name All Years (http://www.chevelles.com/forums/member.php?u=32350) and see if he can get you a decent ass end for it.

Good luck!

You know the new full trunk floor has this piece as well the floor. That way you wont have to make 3 section welds along with trying to replace the rear body panel.
All your welds would be at factory seems which you just spot weld the pieces back together, just like how GM built the car.

Id replace it, who knows what kind of rust is hiding where you can not see it on the rear body panel.

Thanks for all your replies. Rob - thanks for taking the time to link in all that information. I will try your suggestions this weekend. I'll post pictures of the results - hopefully it will look respectable.

Kevin

Your welcome Kevin.

Rob always has some great tips, but rather then trying to peice together a mural of molested metal I'd look for a decent donor car. It would make your life much easier.

Contact John, member name All Years (http://www.chevelles.com/forums/member.php?u=32350) and see if he can get you a decent ass end for it.

Good luck!

This is a good suggestion, but.

I looked at Kevins pictures several times, and he has a pretty good handle on what he is doing, thats why I took the time to type it all up, although it was a lot of rigamarole on my part, to get to the point of cutting out and putting pieces in.

Sometimes when a guy gets into this patchwork, it starts working on a guys mind, that it isn't right, but what he's doing is fine.

You know the new full trunk floor has this piece as well the floor. That way you wont have to make 3 section welds along with trying to replace the rear body panel.
All your welds would be at factory seems which you just spot weld the pieces back together, just like how GM built the car.

Id replace it, who knows what kind of rust is hiding where you can not see it on the rear body panel.

I wasn't aware that he could buy a new piece for that, because you can see the threads for the bumper brackets, are you sure of this Eric, or a picture of the new piece, I would like to see it.

Rob

I found this for a 71, but i don't think the part he is welding on is included, correct me if I'm wrong.


TRUNK FLOOR COMPLETE ONE PIECE 1971-72 CHEVELLE http://www.ss396.com/mm5/graphics/00000007/RTF-171.jpg Quantity in Basket: None
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Included

"Just to be clear, the half-a** repair was started by me, lol."

There's no need for this kind of honesty. You are simply fixing someone else's half ass repair. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Good luck.

http://dynacorn.com/site/04home/home.html

http://dynacorn.com/site/sqlcart/images/Large/1462H.jpg
This from the 70 floor but same thing minus the fuel vapor BS.
If you look at the 68 floor you will clearly see the rear panel

Rob if you look close at the picture you posted you will see the spot welds in the back for the floor to the rear body panel.

Full floor maybe not the route for you since you have bought the 3 piece floor kit, but I surely would replace that rear panel. One could have a nice RUST FREE one installed way faster then you can "patch" your current one. IMO work smarter not harder...Eric

"Just to be clear, the half-a** repair was started by me, lol."

There's no need for this kind of honesty. You are simply fixing someone else's half ass repair. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Good luck.

I'm confused on your statement.

Full floor maybe not the route for you since you have bought the 3 piece floor kit, but I surely would replace that rear panel. One could have a nice RUST FREE one installed way faster then you can "patch" your current one. IMO work smarter not harder...Eric[/quote]

Good point Eric, but a little practice patching up these bodies is not a bad thing either. Your looking at $500 with shipping, sometimes a guy has gotta do what he's gotta do.

I still would like to see a clear picture of the underside of that panel, I know my 69 has a lot of metal in there, but I'm not sure of the 71,s.

Maybe some one with a 71 that replaced it could put a couple of pictures up, I'm learning here.

Rob

The surface rust really looks worse in the photos - overall, the panel is solid. The area above the license plate is the only section that has rusted to the point that it has become thin. I'm pretty sure that I can patch it and make it nice - it's just going to take a lot of time. I could look for a donor piece, but I don't think that I need the whole panel. I'm going to see how it turns out after I spend time on it this weekend, and if I'm not happy I'll start to look for that section from a donor car. Once the floors and inner/outer wheelhouses have been replaced, it will go off the frame and onto the rotisserie - then it's back on the frame for the quarters.

I appreciate all of your comments; next time (if I survive this restoration) I'll buy the one piece trunk!

-Kevin

I had a snow day today so went out for a few hours to try and patch things up. Those aren't holes in the first picture, that is just shiny metal. I'm debating how much more grinding I should do before I clean it up and por15 the inside of the trunk. What do you think?

-Kevin

Anything that doesn't look good, put a little body filler on it. Rough it up with some 36 grit, and put the filler to it. Then show us the finished product. Make it look nice.:)

I spent more time out in the garage today - even though it was a little cold outside. It bothered me that the inside of the panel looked rough after the repair so I cleaned it up. Tomorrow I'm going to try and make the outside of the panel look better - when I welded in my patch panels I lost the contour of the area in front of the passenger side bolt hole (if that makes sense). In picture 3. I'm not sure if it makes a difference clearance wise or if it will be visible with the bumper on. Should I try to hammer the repair to match the shape of the other side, or do you think it will be okay as is? Thanks to all that are helping!

-Kevin

I would be guessing Kevin, maybe Eric will see this and respond. If he doesn't check this thread out by tomorrow, We'll have to track him down:)

After using my hammer and dolly (more the hammer because I couldn't fit the dolly between panels) I got the contour to roughly match. I had to bang up my nice interior panel that I made, but nobody will ever see the inside of it anyway. Pounding on that panel with the hammer, I can say one thing for sure - it's a solid repair! After adding some metal with my welder and grinding, I'm fairly pleased with the result. I still have some fine tuning to do, but think that it will turn out good after all. I probably have about ten hours total in this repair, so in retrospect maybe I should have found a donor. I did gain more welding/metal shaping experience...I'll try to post pictures after I smooth it out some more.

Kevin

Sounds good:thumbsup:

"I'm confused on your statement."

It's was just a joke. Can't tell on the internet. I'm basically suggesting that you not admit you are at fault and just blame it on the previous owner.

"I'm confused on your statement."

It's was just a joke. Can't tell on the internet. I'm basically suggesting that you not admit you are at fault and just blame it on the previous owner.


Sounds good John:thumbsup:

After taking a few weekends off, I finally got a chance to get back at it. I finished the inside part of the panel, complete with two coats of por-15. I had some extra left so I coated the outside just to keep it from rusting before stripping and epoxy primer. I guess the results are okay, I removed all the rust and this section will not be visible with the panel welded back into place and the bumper on. What do you think?

Looks good, and it shouldn't rust.