More fun with sheet metal

We are making more progress on “Billy” the Bugeye from Kansas City, here for a complete restoration, and we are almost done rebuilding the foundation of the car. Above, you can see the car when it arrived, and it looks pretty good! But once you media-blast these cars, get ready for some serious holes, which you can see in the pictures that follow:

Above you can see a common problem area, where the battery rests up against the firewall. Electrons are flowing, acid is flowing (in 1958 there was no such thing as a maintenance-free battery) and there is pressure and chafing here from the battery hold down pressing the battery against the firewall. Thus, many Bugeyes rust- through in this area.

Below, you can see the firewall patch, and in the next picture, the weld and burnt primer ground-down and filled with self-etching primer, ready for a little filler, primer and then paint.

Below is the right front frame area just under where the oil filter lives. As mentioned in our prior post about this car, dirt can collect in this frame area and can trap water, which, in this case, rusted out the inner skin as shown. Below, you can see the progression of the repair. Motor mount is to the left:

Below, you can see the progression of the repair of the right front footwell/floorpan. Note the rust in the vertical sill to the right and in the kick panel in front, in the first picture, which is repaired in the subsequent pictures.

The front of the rockers is often a trouble spot, that often requires a lot of work. This car is no exception…

Exterior of inner rocker, footwell is behind this sheet metal box

Next, the outer rocker front portion is welded in place. We chose to save a lot of the original rocker and to join old and new at the “A” pilar.

Here’s the quite nasty lower hinge mount in the “A” pilar, hitch is sequentially repaired below. Note the seam for the front rocker panel repair (from the photos above), just below the “A” pilar.

Moving further aft, below you can see the outer floor pan area and spring mount on the passenger side. Sill runs along the bottom of the photo and the “top hat” stringer runs near the top of the photo, fore and aft.

Here’s another view of the same area, this time, looking outboard from the tunnel

Now the patches have been welded in place.

Underside view of the same area, where the rear floor patch is grafted to the original pan

Amazing that a car that looks so good (below) requires this much work! But restoration often of old cars often uncovers past sins. And this car is lucky to have found its way here! Soon the body filling, priming and painting will begin!