August 2004

It's been a month since I have been able to work on the car on the weekends. We had daily showers on Friday, Aug 13, 2004, when Hurrican Charley hit Florida. The hurricane was classified as a category 4, but might have been a cat 5, when it landed. The winds were clocked at 145 mph, with gusts over 185. The hurricane passed by on the east side of us, but this is what a glancing blow from a cat 4 looks like out the back door of our house.

This is what the hell hole looks like, before repair. There aren't any holes in the floor and only a couple of holes in the firewall, with several small holes in the fender wall. BTW, I placed a piece of white paper on the back side of the fender wall to be able to better see the holes.

This shows the holes in the firewall.

I removed the battery tray by drilling out the spot-welds on the bottom attachment, then cutting the top piece off of the leg (down part). Instead of drilling out the spot-welds on the top section, I ground the metal away. This allowed me to keep from drilling holes in the fender wall.

Here's a wide shot of the battery tray removed, before repairing the hell hole.

This shows the metal patches I put in the A/C holes and the rust I cut out of the fender wall. I used a hand-held hacksaw and a cutting wheel to remove the rusted pieces.

After I welded the pieces in, I ground down the excess welds and covered with All Metal.

This shows the All Metal sanded down and ready for primer.

These are the parts that I ordered from Restoration-Design, engine shelf, suspension ear, engine lid hinge w/bolt, battery tray and battery stand.

This is the before shots of the suspension ear. This shows the outside shot.

This is the inside shot. As you can tell, the PO obviously had the ear break and instead of doing the repair correctly, they just welded up the crack.

This is the inside, underneath shot.

This is the outside, underneath shot.

This is the inside, top shot.

I began to remove the engine shelf by drilling out the spot-welds, then cutting out the center section.

Next, I removed the front section. I used a grinder to grind down the metal because I couldn't get a drill into the tight areas.

Finally I removed the rear section of the shelf, then began to remove the ear. I used the 3M purple wheel to remove the paint so I could see the spot-welds. This is the spot-welds along the top.

This is the spot-welds along the front.

This is the spot-welds along the rear. There are more spot-welds in between the sides on the face of the ear, just above the triangle bracket.

Since the ear had apparently been repaired before, I decided to remove the ear in sections. I wasn't able to easily distinguish the attachments underneath, so I am going to remove the top section first.

This is a shot of the top section of the ear removed.

I still have the rest of the ear to remove, but I decided to trial fit the new engine shelf, looks great.

These are the tools that I used. The drill is used to drill out the spot-welds. The air hammer is used to help break the spot-welds after drilling. The angle grinder is used with either a cutting wheel or a grinding disk. The heavy-duty wire brush is used to remove the factory installed seam sealer. Then there are the various hand tools.

This is the top section of the ear. Notice the rust and the extra plating. Some time in the past, this car had the ear rust/crack, so instead of replacing the ear correctly, they just welded in up, not pretty, but effective.

A close up of the rust and plating.

This show the extra plating and the attempt to fixing the broken ear.