I had forgotten about this thread to be honest but I spent Thursday and Friday at a buddies' shop and now know how to weld (well, sort of...I don't claim to be the expert by any means)

On Thursday they already had one side's floor pan put in and we worked on welding in the new pan and seat risers for the other side then we seam sealed everything and painted. I also did a couple of small patches in the rear floor mostly because they needed to be done but also to learn.

On Friday, I had found a factory exhaust in really good shape on Craig's List a while back so we put that on the car. While we were at it we went ahead and painted the black part of the door on the interior since it took about maybe 10 minutes to do. While it was there we checked all the frame rails and they were fine minus one spot on the passengers side so we patched that up as well. I was actually surprised that the rails were in as good a shape as they were.

The interior is back in the car now and the only thing left for them to do over the next day or two is finish painting the roof and back of the car. There was some rust on the roof that was basically heavy surface rust so I wanted to address that while it was still a relatively easy fix...easy compared to trying to put a new roof on.

Over the next bit....I am going to start looking for a welder for home. I could take the car to my buddies' shop and do the front apron there but I would rather not trouble him and why pay someone when I can do this myself. If I were just borrowing some tools he most likely wouldn't charge me but he isn't open on Saturdays and it might be difficult for me to get a weekday off for the next few months. A couple days labor on my part made the floors much more affordable for certain and as a bonus I got to learn a lot.

The down side....with new carpet and some clean paint on the doors my scuff plates and kick panels now look like crap, LOL! Might have to shop around for a deal on those. Also going to have to paint my dash and glove box door at some point because now those minor imperfections sure stick out more.

 

Thanks for the info. I think it would be worthwhile to add welding to my bag of tricks, especially as this project goes forward. I've got a couple of friends who may be able to help. I'll keep you posted as it goes on.
BTW thanks BA for the Sig. I like it. It makes me wish (even more) that I lived in the mountains again instead of the piedmont.

 

You can put [IMG] and [/IMG] on the link and it will have the sig show up like mine does. You want [IMG] at the front of the link and [/IMG] at the end.

 

if your gonna be learning to weld do the whole panel spot weld will be easier than patching. if you do patch make sure to cut out the patch in a square shape for ease of fitment, much like fixing drywall. if you have a round hole you make it sq to patch

 

I agree with you on that one. The one or two spots I had on the rear floor...I made sure to cut a square (a rectangle really) and cut out extra metal to get back to decent metal.

Welding was not that hard to learn but like I said I am also by no means the expert. My buddy has a guy that works in his shop that has been around in the car business for a long time and he gave me about a five to ten minute lesson on technique, how the welder works, etc and after that the only way really to learn is by doing. It does help however to try a few then get someone who knows what they are doing to look over your work for additional advice / guidance. The first few look pretty rough but after a couple hours practice it is pretty easy to get the hang of it and I found that welding is really a lot of fun and is certainly a necessary skill to have if you plan on owning an old Mustang.

Now the real trick to it all is going to be finding a decent welder for home use that doesn't cost a ton of money but not going "too cheap" in buying one with too limited of setting options and so forth, LOL!