[A. McGovern]

Quarantine has had me in the garage finally doing some repairs that have been long overdue. Ball Joints and body bushings. Trying to figure out why the fuel gauge reads 3/4 when full, 1/2 when 3/4, and so on. Replacing left and right rear floor pans (Removing bulk of the old floor pan. Previous owner used fiberglass to repair the hole), Dynamat interior and install new carpet and headliner. Also trying to figure out dash lights grounding issue. Pulled the dash down to check out lights. Turns out it's a ground issue within the plug that goes into the gauge. So now I have to figure out how to repair that, or try to find a good replacement on Ebay.

 

[78 Elk]

You have a nice looking 70 El Camino. Making progress on our projects is always a good thing. That's awesome.

 

[slick87gn]

Welcome to the club. While on lockdown I dropped in a new big block. Curious about all body mounts. Did they all come out without having to make access holes ?

 

[A. McGovern]

Welcome to the club. While on lockdown I dropped in a new big block. Curious about all body mounts. Did they all come out without having to make access holes ?

That's what I want to do. But I need to build the 396 first. It has no rotating assembly so I need to locate a useable crank and rods.
The body mounts were so much easier than I thought they'd be. There are access holes in the frame already so theres no need to cut any holes. I had the car up on jack stands so I could maneuver underneath. It makes it much easier especially once you get to the solid rubber bushings under the passenger compartment. Those ones only sit in a hole in the frame and get sandwiched between the frame and the body. You'll need a long pry bar and the inner fenders will need to be mostly unbolted and lowered enough that you can get your hand in. The mounts at the front of the body, just under the firewall are a bolt and a square nut. So you'll need to be able to get a wrench in there. Hence the unbolted inner fenders. I just used an adjustable wrench. All others (aside from the ones I mentioned under the passenger compartment) are secured with a bolt that gets run up into the body. The mounts at the rear of the body were the most difficult. Why, I don't know because they were the easiest to access. I unbolted all the mounts, and went through with a pry bar (sometimes with a thick piece of scrap metal between the body and the pry bar to prevent distortion and take up gap). It went relatively quickly. What took the longest were the two at the rear of the frame, and letting my bolts sit in a rust dissolver. I didn't buy new hardware because mine just had some surface rust on them and I didn't want to sit and wait for new stuff to come in the mail.

 

[A. McGovern]

Been busy working on my kids new giant swing set so I haven't had much time available to continue progress on the Elco. I have the floor pan "fit"and the rusted section cut out. This was my first attempt at floor pan replacement and let me tell you, it's been a learning experience. It hasn't been coming out the way I want it to. The gaps between the old and new metal in some areas are much larger than I want. I wasn't able to use the old section as a template to cut the new because it was so far gone. This made it much more difficult to get an accurate cut. Now I'm having to deal with 1/4" and 3/8" gaps in some areas.

I had issues when initially attempting to start welding it in place. I installed .023 solid steel wire in my welder in place of the .030 i normally use. When I tried to use the welder, the wire wouldn't feed smoothly. Every other second it would feed/stop/feed/stop. Didn't matter what the tension was on the wire, the spool was free and able to move, and the drive wheel was flipped to the .6 side. I couldn't figure out why it would not feed so I switched back to the .030. Low and behold, it feed perfectly. I began to weld, but with the larger diameter wire, it required more heat and is blowing through, especially in the areas where the gap is more than ideal.

 

[A. McGovern]

I was able to get more welding done on the floor pan yesterday. I planned on going out this morning but the kids woke up too early. I almost have the floor pan welded in. It's taking some time since I have to "stitch" it, being careful not to create more work for myself. It's slow and tedious, but it's getting there. Once I have this section welded in place, I can cut the section that will go immediately in front of it. Finally I'll cut out the rotted portion of the drivers side, which seems to be significantly less than the passengers side. I'm hoping that side will go smoother and faster.

 

[A. McGovern]

Got the next section of the floor pans cut out, trimmed up, and began welding it in place. Such a tedious process. This is the second area of the passenger side that needed replacing. After this I'll cut out the section of the drivers side and then begin putting the interior back together.

 

[A. McGovern]

Been real busy lately with a busted water heater that caused water damage all inside the heater cabinet. When I finished up that repair, the wife and I had to finish sealing hundreds of precut and drilled cedar to build our kids a large swing set/playhouse. I was finally able to get space back in my garage to work so I jumped back on the floor boards.

The passenger side is almost all ground down and ready for seal

Fitting the new pan for the drivers side

Cutting out the rusted portions.

Final trimming of the pan before install

Used the new pan to scribe a line to cut out the old stuff.

Old section removed, then I began cleaning up the floor brace.

Old section

Brace cleaned up and sealed with Rust Converter and Rust Encapsulator.

Fitting the new pan in place and clamping.

Began tack welding in place.

 

[A. McGovern]

A few plug welds and more tacks around the perimeter

New pans recess doesn't match up with the old one so I'll have to make some modifications there. Thinking of cutting down the length of the recess on both the new and old sections and closing up the gap on the old, while increasing the gap on the new.

New pan almost completely welded in. The gap on the tunnel I plan to fill with a small strip of metal. Evidently didn't have it fit up as well as I thought.

Rear of pan completely welded in as well as sill side.

 

[A. McGovern]

Went back out this afternoon and filled the gap at the trans tunnel where I measured/fit incorrectly.

Addressed the issue with the new pan not having the same depth to the wiring trough as the original. I cut both sides of the trough on both the old and the new, mated them together, worked the sides down to reduce the gap, and rewelded.

Gap on existing pan.

Gap on new pan

Lining up the two pieces.

Gaps welded up.

Pan is fully welded and ready to be ground down.

All welds will be ground down, and pin holes rewelded, and then I'll apply seam sealer to this and the passenger side. Underside isn't the prettiest, but I'll coat everything with sprayable undercoat to protect from future rust issues.
Once those steps are complete, I'll begin cleaning up the rest of the floor, and get it ready for Dynamat!

 

[Meyer907]

Nice job... I am in same boat just be hind with Dads.

 

[A. McGovern]

Gotta love rust issues. I took a walk out to the back of my property under the RV cover the other day to day dream about my '60 El Camino. It has lots of rust issues. I just purchased a couple of quarter patch panels for that car.

 

[slick87gn]

You sir are doing a lot of work during the pandemic. best of luck.

 

[A. McGovern]

Went out this morning and ground down the welds. I didn't feather everything completely into the pan because I figured it's all going to be covered with seam sealer, and honestly, I was tired of grinding. I'll weld up a few pinholes, grind them down, and then apply seam sealer to all the new pans.

 

[A. McGovern]

The plan this morning was to go out and weld up the pin holes, then start applying seam sealer. Unfortunately, a couple spots where the metal was thin, it kept melting away and I could see I was going to have to chase my tail in those areas. My OCD kicked in and I decided to cut out that area, and patch is using some of the left over metal from the passengers side. I mapped out the area, cut out the old section, fit in the new one, and started tack welding it in place. In the morning I'll grind down the welds, and start prepping the floor for seam sealer. I'm going to order some Rust Convertor and Rust Encapsulator to coat the rest of the flooring.

Cut out old rusted portion

Formed patch panel using scrap from passenger side

Fit up and ready for weld

Tack welded and began stitch welding

Fully welded and ready for grinding

 

[B52bombardier1]

Looking good!!

Rick

 

[A. McGovern]

Took a little break from the floors yesterday and decided to finally paint the steering column that has been brown since 1970. It is the only component of the interior that remained the original color (aside from the back wall of the cab). I sanded (and my 6 year old daughter helped for a bit) the column, etch primed, painted with a semi flat black, and then sprayed a couple coats of clear. Looks much better now. I have had an aftermarket tach clamped to the column ever since I swapped the car from a 6 cyl to a v8, but I don't want to put that clamp back around the column and mar up my freshly painted column. So, I'm considering the sweep dash, clock to tach conversion. ss396.com sells them but I found one on eBay for half the price from a guy who just swapped his Chevelle dash to the SS style. I'm thinking about doing that, to clean up the look of the dash and keep things flowing nicely instead of having that bulky tach mounted on top of the column.

Sanded and ready for paint

Etch primer

Semi flat black paint

Two coats of clear. Also, you can see the tach that I mentioned, down on the floor next to the pedals.

Began scraping off the old seam sealer in areas of the back of the cab where it was split, dried out, missing, or I knew that it was leaking.

I'll apply new seam sealer soon and keep moving forward with this project.

 

[A. McGovern]

Time is limited right now due to school starting up next week but I was able to get a few things prepped on the floor. I got tired of seeing the shelf panel in the ages old, faded, EDP coating so I picked up some more paint and sprayed a new coat of black and clear. I had been wanting to paint it the same color of the car but figured it would be much easier, and faster, to paint it black instead of trying to match the paint. I also had to fix a quarter sized hole on the trans tunnel. Have no idea what may have caused that, but saw it when i pulled up the old sound deadening. Previous owner, or someone down the line must have just covered it up.

Scuffed the EDP coating on the shelf with scotch brite.

Two coats of semi gloss black

Two coats of clear

 

[78 Elk]

It's looking very nice. Great job.

 

[A. McGovern]

Got out there early this morning and applied the seam sealer. Next step is to spray rust converter on the remainder of the floor, and begin application of Dynamat. Had to try to get seam sealer way up in the corner of the sail panel and where it meets the rear trough for the rear window. A previous repair was done at a body shop and they did not completely seal up the corner. I don’t know if it needed to be welded or not but it leaked water onto the rear pan on the drivers side for years. It was a small void but I finally found it! Hopefully that takes care of the water entrance issue.