g741.org

I got my patch panels from Jeepanelsplus a couple of weeks ago. Today I began working on the cab floor beneath the battery box.

First the before pic:



You can see the battery box was still attached. I wound up just cutting around the welded nuts to get it to come loose. The bolt head were gone from inside the box.

Here's what the patch panel looked like. I was going to just cut out sections and patch the original panel but the replacement is not exactly like the original. So I just decided to cut the area out and preserve as much of the critical edges and impossible to replicate curves as possible.




Battery box out. I will probably try to get a replacement, though I have not decided yet.




Pan with no box under it:




I checked the fit of the patch panel and drew a line to guide cutting. I began on the inside of the panel next to the tunnel:



Old metal gone. I have some prep work to do before the new bottom can go in. I have to replace the metal *around* it. Whew!



I took the new panel and trimmed it to fit along the outside vertical edge. I just could not wait to see what it will look like. Nothing welded, just a fit check and then back out:



Here's the inside edge of the patch. I will cut off the wide flange since I have enough good metal to stay away from the curves of the tunnel.




I'm going to begin patching around the new floor tommorrow (Hopefully) and will have more pics when I can.


For those of you who want it, here's the link to all the pics I took:

http://apollosaturn.smugmug.com/M37/Pas ... 3464_7iPWM

John, You got your hands full, I had no idea you had so much fabb'ing to do!

Yeah Bruce, I was very surprised when we rolled the cab over a few months ago. It didn't look that bad as long as you didn't look underneath it...when it was on the truck!

Oh well. I'll learn valuable skills doing this as I've never done this sort of sheetmetal work before.

Looks like a handful all right, but you have a nice replacement panel to go in, too!
Gary