Trunk Floor and Wheel Wells

 I'm just about done with the trunk floor.  Just needs the filler to be sanded smooth and then primed.  I was able to get the floor cut out without damaging the braces so that saved a lot of work and money.

Trunk with the rusty floor cutout

New floor from underneath.  Just needs rustproofing now.

New floor inside the trunk.  At this point its done and just needs the filler sanded down and primed.  Didn't feel like doing that so I started working of the wheel wells where I needed to remove tons of mud and undercoating so they could be rust proofed and painted and re-undercoated.  I the passenger side I found it was rusted through on the top.  This was a real problem for a while because the wheel well cannot be replaced without removing the quarter panel.  After a while I figured I could cut the rust spot out because it was not too big.  Then buy a new wheel well cut a patch out of it to fit the rust cutout.  I did that and it worked pretty well.

This is the rusted area after I patched it.  Now it needs some paint and seam sealer and will be like new.

This is me after grinding out the dirt and undercoating from the wheel wells.  You have to pretty much crawl into them to see anything and they were pretty messy.  My neighbor said I should probably not dress up with blackface these days.  Don't show this to my wife or I'll be in deep crap.

Now I'm working on applying seam sealer to all the metal joints where body panels meet the interior so to keep any water from leaking into the cable from the new panel joints.  Especially from the new floor.  After than I will undercoat the entire floor and then take the body off the body cart and reattach it to the frame.

I may put the engine into the frame prior to that...or not.

After that I will be focusing on getting ready to paint the car in April.  I need to sand the body and all of the parts that have been removed down to bare metal and then apply epoxy primer.  This includes the main body, trunk lid, new hood, fenders, header panel etc.   After the epoxy is on I apply high build primer and start sanding to identify where there a dents or other issues that need fixing.  This will take forever as I will probably apply primer and sand several times before it ends up smooth and ready to paint.  Then all the panels that have been remove need to be temporarily reinstalled to make sure they fit perfectly.  Once that is done it will be April and they need to be removed again as the car will be painted in parts and then reassembled again.

The good news is that there is no more rust on the car!  A major feat considering how it was when I got it.  But still a lot of body work to go.  We are a year out still before the can can be driven.