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Roll Cage vs Rocker Box on '74 Blazer

If I still had my extra hood layin around you could've had it......aren't there any good Pick n Pulls in your area? We have a few up here and I can almost always find a good square body donor whenever I go out there. They're getting hard to find, but they're still popping up regularly in decent enough shape for the stuff I've needed.
 
There are some in riverside, but what they do have is $$$. So-Cal is running low on rust free parts.
 
Braced the rear "Hump" area. Mine did not exist anymore and that section provides a lot of structure to the rocker panels. It completes the rocker box where it attaches and also provides support to the seat belt mount area. It is a curved "Hump" and I did my best recreating it, ha!. I basically just welded in some 16 gauge from the Hump straight down to the bottom of the rocker box. Pic is before I cleaned up the welds (I am not a great welder but you can grab those and shake the truck like it's prom night!)

Cut out more pieces to continue bracing the rear "Hump", cut the body bolt out and cleaned that area, still cutting spot welds to get the floor brace out. Truck is getting flimsy at the firewall, but the brace and soft top frame is keeping it where it started.

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Making progress. I work on it about an hour every other day. Kick panel fitted up with brace and inner rocker.

Floor and second brace still need fitting.

Pictures all look the same lol

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Got diagnosed with Covid, so I am stuck at home until after new years. Luckily no symptoms. So lots of free time again. I Cut and Fitted the front to rear floor brace. Also cleaned up and patched the rocker box where needed. The floor pan keeps getting cut more to access everything. So will probably replace it with the full replacement pan in the end.

Rust Bullet will arrive Friday, so I will paint the inside of the rocker box and underside of floor pan. Then some final trimming/fitting and zap it all back together!

Can't wait to Seal it up and hopefully ignore it for another decade.

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Painted Rust Bullet in the inside of the rocker box. You can see my booger welded patches for the box. Didn't care how it looks inside there, Ugly but it works. The front of the box was fairly floppy, now it doesn't move.

Waiting for the paint to dry and then I get to weld the puzzle back together. I'm more of a spot weld/tack welder guy. So the floor pan will probably make me want to give up

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Bigb55 said:
Painted Rust Bullet in the inside of the rocker box. You can see my booger welded patches for the box. Didn't care how it looks inside there, Ugly but it works. The front of the box was fairly floppy, now it doesn't move.

Waiting for the paint to dry and then I get to weld the puzzle back together. I'm more of a spot weld/tack welder guy. So the floor pan will probably make me want to give up

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Click to expand...

welding the floor pans should be easy then. It’s just a million spot welds all lined up next to each other. It’s how I did mine.
 
Welded in the support braces and fabbed up the square panel to connect them all. Cut the rear of the brace 4" to short so booger welded the back part back on. Also had to bend that brace some to fit. Spot welds came out pretty good with good penetration. The front of the brace was welded to part of the OEM brace where it has the inner fender nut. I somehow did a decent looking bead weld on that part. :dunno:

Going to scuff it all up and cover it in some rust bullet. Then I have some more trimming on the floor panel and rockers to get them to fit just right.

The braces litterally added a "shit-ton" of stiffness to the front area. The firewall no longers flexes when pressure is applied. Excited to see what happens when the floor pan and rockers get attached to the box

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I don't know how much better rust bullet is compared to other type of products. But Its grey shine makes me happy after looking at rust for a few months.

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Inner rocker and kick panel welded on. Have to trim the inner rocker in the back because they're made for a pickup. Then fit and weld in the floor pan.

And then finally, weld on the new outer rocker!!!!!

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Tacked the floor pan in. I Started off by burning big holes in it from messing up the spot welds that connect it to the brace underneath.

The first spot weld looked fine. But it never burned into the brace. Looked good but popped off when I started the second. Second spot weld failed miserably. After redrilling the spots and adjusting the welder it worked. Now I get to grind those mounds away. :surepal: probably will do 3-4 more spot welds to the braces. The floor pan is 1 or 2 gauges smaller then the braces and melts/warps fast.

Started tacking the corners and found out I trimmed the pan 1/2" to short width wise. So have to make a filler strip.

I would have been better off with the other style of floor pan. This was the one that has the inner rocker extension. I ended up cutting most of it off to make it work.

It won't look showroom quality, but you can plop an elephant on it now! Before it felt like a tin can when weight was applied

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Connected the rear part of the floor pan to the inner rocker. Hand bent some 18 gauge sheet to match the front weatherstrip channel. Came out ok. I Gave up on trying to trim it to fit perfect and just overlapped it.

All that's left is to finish welding it all together and then attempt to blend the paint.

Passenger side is officially repaired.

Next up is to do it all again on the driver side.

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mechted said:
It goes easier the second time.
Click to expand...

It will definitely go smoother. I know what needs to be cut and what doesn't. Goal is to cut less OEM metal on driver side.

It appears to be less rusted, but won't know until it's opened up.
 
Re made the rear weatherstrip channel of the floor pan. Bought a metal brake and made a perfect bend in the sheet metal. Came out much nicer.

Welded in the rest of the floor pan. Some parts went smooth and the 100s of tiny tack weld method worked well. Some parts required more cussing and chasing holes. But it's welded.

Things I learned. Keep the gaps the same as the wire size and it's smooth sailing. A bit wider and you're likely to burn through. It's not perfect but it will do nicely. Bed liner will make it all better.

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Obligatory floor pan with rust bullet pic! Because it looks so clean.

Fun fact a 1/4 pint is enough for two coats on the pass side pan. When I Finish up the driver side repair, I will rust bullet the whole pan, then plan on summit white raptor liner.

Hit the hard to reach areas of the internal rocker box and cowl vents with eastwood internal frame coating. It's an ok product, very expensive, takes a lot to cover a small area, very watery to flow into cracks, makes a mess, but should stop and slow rust in those areas. Two cans cost $45-50.

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