There is not very much rust on this car at all, but when I rolled it up on its side, you can see there is a hole in the bottom of the driver side heater channel. The soft metal is almost truly contained in the bottom plate only, but there are some small pin holes in the side panel and the part under the back seat where the body attaches to the pan. None of it should be hard to fix.
I started by cutting the soft metal from the bottom and the side panels and cleaning the back side of the top panel. Once that was done, I sprayed the inside of the heater channel with a weld through primer to protect it all so I don't have this problem again in the future. Not that this car will ever be driven in the rain.
Finally, I cut a new side panel and a new bottom pane and welded them in place. To attach the bottom panel, I drilled a series of small holes along each of the 2 long edges and spot welded the panel in place. I then butt welded the 2 short edges to the existing metal on the car. I did not bother to put the ridges in the bottom panel since this is not a show car.
Next up was to fabricate a bracket that can be used to hold the rear brake lines in place. Remember, the CB Performance rear disc brakes came with hard lines all the way to the caliper. I used a hard line to the top of the trailing arm then a soft line the rest of the way so I can do a brake job and not have to disconnect the caliper. After 6 or 7 revs of the stamp made out of cardboard, here is the real thing.
It has now been welded to the top of the trailing arm where the rubber stop attaches. It turned out quite well. The bracket is very solid and should not have any problem holding the brake line in place. The brake lines have now been bled and the brake system is complete.
