1970 Chevy Chevelle Malibu Project - Project XS Chevelle, Part Two-Rustification Restoration

You can see how much we trimmed from the original toe panel piece. The metal cut away is already part of the Goodmark main floor, so it was redundant to our needs. Goodmark's panels come with extra metal stamped in to allow for any fitment issues, and the usual production variances of cars.

An area where custom fabrication was needed was the seam area where the cowl/rocker/cowl ears meet. On both sides this area was rusted badly from being a moisture collection point with no draining ability. These areas had to be repaired before welding in the new toe panels. Unfortunately, Goodmark doesn't make replacement sheetmetal to fix this particular problem, so the CARS crew started measuring, then cutting out the oxidized areas so fresh metal could be welded in.

With the offending pieces gone, the first step was to weld in a new rocker panel extension, since this piece is the foundation for the other repair work around the cowl and firewall.

Before welding in any new metal, the whole area was hit with an abrasive disc to provide rust-free welding surfaces. This was also done to make sure there wasn't more steel that needed replacing so the toe panels could be installed.

With the rocker extension tacked in place, the trimmed toe panel is fit-checked, and used as a template to mark what rusted metal needs to be removed.

Once again, the cutting wheel goes to work ridding our project car of more corroded steel. Again, measure several times before cutting anything out.

On the right you can see the rocker extension, and how it relates to installing the toe panel piece. The fit on the Goodmark piece was almost perfect, but a little massaging was necessary to get the fit just right.

Here's a close up of the finished rocker extension. Because of rodent debris, any water that accumulated in this area of the body couldn't drain out, meaning it became a breeding ground for rust. This part of the body affects the mounting of the toe panels, floor pans, outer/inner rockers, and the cowl ears, so it had to be repaired so the individual parts would have a solid mounting point. Once everything is welded in place, it'll be painted with some zinc oxide primer to protect against corrosion while the rest of the car is being worked on.

After the toe panel was welded in, all the welds were ground down and smoothed. Once the sheetmetal work is done and the car is fully primered/painted, you won't be able to tell where new steel was added.

With the toe panel in, we found it wasn't quite wide enough on the rocker side, and needed to be modified a bit.

The rocker end of the toe panel was cut off and moved into position so a simple piece of steel could be welded in to give us the correct width. Because of how the main floor piece slides into position in the car's structure, we did not fully weld the toe panel in place.

With the body mount plate full repaired, it was coated in zinc oxide primer to protect against corrosion before the reinforcement cup is welded back in. The reason for using the zinc oxide is while it protects the metal from new corrosion, it still provides a fully weldable surface for later work.

Before reattaching the body mount, the area behind it was coated with zinc oxide primer. The primer neutralizes any surface rust while also preventing new rust from forming and screwing up all the repair work that's just been done.

Here's one of our repaired body mounts primered and ready for reattachment to the body. The A-body ragtops used a special mount that featured an extra body bushing/cushion for support since there wasn't a roof structure to bolster rigidity. The inner cushion doesn't have a bolt going through it like the neighboring mount; it just helped support the body's weight and was held in by pressure. If all goes well, in our next installment we'll be test fitting the Chevelle to its new Art Morrison chassis, finalizing position of the main floor pan assembly, and be welding everything together so we can start work on the trunk area.