A new beginning to the '58 Chevy project.

Well I'm back at it.  A lot has come and gone in the past couple of years, but the end result is I'm back working on the '58 Chevy project.  Lets get right to it. This is the area just in front of the passenger side rear tire.  As you can see, there's not much left.  We'll rebuild it piece by piece.

Looking forward, you can see that most of the "rocker" area structure is gone.  This area makes up most of the structure of the lower body, so it's important to fix it right.

Here I have put in the first piece of new metal.  This horizontal is the new rocker panel base.  Tack welded in place.

Now you make cardboard templates of the pieces you want to add. 

Trace the templates onto 18 gauge sheet steel.  Cut the pieces out and trial fit.  I use this air-powered shear tool.  Works fast and nice.  You'd never be able to cut this metal with hand snips.

Some of the structure tacked in place.  Now we're getting somewhere.

More done.  This point represents a couple hours of work.  Now we'll fix that nasty outer rust hole.

Grind the paint off, and find some good metal to patch to.  Rough cut the hole.  Make the cardboard template.  Cut and form the metal patch.  Trace the patch onto the car and make the final cuts on the car. Here I have sprayed black paint onto the new inside panels, followed by spray undercoating.  Might as well do it now while it's wide open.  Yes you can see right through since the inner panel is missing too.  I'll fix that from the underside later.

Fit the patch panel.  This actually is very time consuming, grinding and fitting each edge to leave the correct gap for welding, but it's all part of the process.  You can see here I have the patch panel all tack welded in.  This is also time consuming, since getting the gaps even and the panel lying flush is critical.  Any step that's poorly done make subsequent steps worse.

This is as far as I got before the rain came, so I packed it up for the day.  That's the basics of it.  Next time we'll finish up the patch, add some filler, and it will look as good as new.

Questions, comments, compliments, or complaints are welcome.  I'll try to have updates every Sunday. Thanks.