It looks like somebody just took my toolbox and dumped half of it out into the car! Would you believe it would take this much effort just to fit the front floorboards and lower half of the firewall?! That’s what I thought when I flipped my helmet off after welding-in this section and looking at what it took to get it all aligned properly.  Check-out the come-along pulling the front door posts together to get the right width. And as you might guess a 75 year old car might also ”settle” a little bit… so you’ll notice the jack that supported the cowl/driver’s door post sticking into the lower left corner of the picture.  This was a job. At least it was fun!

 

Here’s a shot of the same thing when I stopped for a second to take the pictures. You can tell where the lower part of the firewall was put back in after taking the 3-1/4″ section out to make the channeling job work and still keep as much floorboard area available for foot-room as possible. 

 

Shown closer-in and from another angle, it’s easy to see how the pedal geometry still lines up. Remember: Raising the floor into the body effectively lowers the body, it doesn’t change any of the frame-to-body relationships. The only angle that will change will be that of the steering column since now the dash is closer to the frame than it was in its stock configuration.

 

Also notice the firewall uprights (the outer portions leading down to the mounting brackets) still need to have their inner sides fabricated and inserted. There’s also some good size holes that need to be filled before all the grinding and sanding will take place.

 

A shot of the inside shows it with the removable transmission tunnel laid in place. The hole in the floor where the passenger’s feet rest is for access to the stock battery box. I’m undecided as to whether I’m going to leave the battery here to allow for more trunk space or to relocate it into the trunk for better weight distribution. In a car this light, I’ve got a pretty good idea of where it’s going to end-up, but I’m leaving the hole open until I cross that bridge.  After all this, it’s really no big deal to fab a lid. It might even make a good place for a tool box. Who knows?

 

Same thing from the other side. Maybe now it’s easier to see why I lifted the entire interior cowl supports (side kick panel area) so early on since the front and bottom parts of these are what the floor eventually lined back up to.

If you click to enlarge the picture and look along the outside edge where the driver’s foot panel lines up with the next panel back, you’ll see that it’s off-set inward what amounts to 1/4″ (half of the corner bolt hole).  When I measured it out, I thought I made an accurate floor panel, but it wasn’t lining up exactly as I wanted. As it turns out, the transmission tunnel mounting holes are off by half a bolt hole as well in the same direction so the panel was made the right size, it’s just not installed exactly where it should be. I could probably make it work just by flexing the hump a little extra, but it’s bothering me enough that I’ll be cutting apart the seem that I just welded and redoing it on my next trip out to the garage.

How’s that old saying go? If it’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing twice… or something like that.

 

So here I am all caught back up on my writing, ending with a current picture of what the project looks like. I do enjoy being able to look at where I was or what I was playing with years ago & it motivates me to keep at it that much more. I just don’t make the time to do it often enough.

Tags: 1936 Chevy

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