Rear transition pan metal work, part 3 - repairing the shock mounts and rear seat bracket

Here's where we left off - the bottom of the floorpan in this area is mostly done. There are some welds to clean up and some dents to hammer out to get the exhaust reinforcements to fit, but the end is in sight.

I cleaned the whole shock mounting area down to bare metal with the wire wheel on an angle grinder, The shock mount hole on the drivers side is ok - no cracks there.

Several cracks on the passenger side - again, due to the air shocks, this mounting hole was bearing too much load from the weight of the car. Forgot to take pics of the 'before' again (grrr....). Drill the end of the crack and start welding from the stop-drill hole to the shock mount hole. The inside gets the same treatment.

Here's the inside at this point. You can also see the dual exhaust reinforcement plates being test fit - more on that later.

This is on the passenger side. The bracket at the shock mount access hole is to hold the lower seat cushion in place. It appears to be in the wrong place after an 'attempt' to braze it back in place at some point.

I removed the bracket and couldn't help but notice a bunch of holes and cracks in the transition pan. It was so bad the bracket was barely hanging on there. So, gotta fill those too...

Cleaned up the bracket - I also drilled a couple holes in where those dimples are so I could plug weld the bracket in place in addition to a few edge welds. They say beginning welders overdo everything...

Where the brazing was still good, I left it alone. I don't think MIG weld material likes brass. So the drivers side is pretty much untouched as the repairs were still solid and there weren't any cracks at the shock mount points.

After fixing all this, I removed my welders ground point, filled lots of little holes and then cleaned/degreased the surfaces and masked it all off so I could prime it. I used a bona-fide 2-part epoxy primer from SPI (link at right) in a Red Oxide color that is supposed to be similar to what the Ford factory would have used back in the 60's. I'll provide more details on priming in a later post.

Here's the finished top side. I'm much happier with this area now. And yes, it's supposed to be that color. It takes a couple days to cure, and it's not as glossy after that.

Next up, I'll bring in 'reinforcements'!