In this installment I begin the disassembly of the front fender to expose more rust. And I was NOT disappointed. I found just about what I expected. A rusted through footwell. On a positive note…I think I found where the water was getting in to soak my carpets. I have no idea how to correct it, but at least I found it.
In order to get to all the rust the front fender had to come off. I encountered a bunch of rusted screws and bolts. I had to cut several of them off. I even used an air chisel to remove some spring type U nuts (yeah I had to look that name up, I had no idea what they were called). I can tell you they were a bitch to remove. But after you deconstruct them a bit they came right off. I’ll likely replace the U nuts with stainless steel bolts and nuts.
The fender didn’t put up much resistance after I got the U nuts off. I then had to remove a plastic fender piece. You can probably guess that the plastic clips weren’t going to survive being taken off.
Underneath I found a lot of surface rust. I put the angle grinder with a wire wheel to work. I cleaned up some of the rust and found a bunch of really bad metal.
In the seem between the wheel well and the footwell I found what I think is the source of my wet carpets. This spot is going to be hard to fix. I don’t know what needs to be cut away and what needs to be welded on.
Inside where this failed bulkhead is is covered with Fat Mat. That will need to be removed. Heat gun and patience I hope will assist me in getting it removed. There is a nice cluster of wires and relays right there too. So joy of joys I’ll get to relocated all that too!!! Woot!
I also took the lug nuts and cleaned all the rust off them. I have the first coat of paint on them. They’ll get a second before I put them back on.
That’s about it for this week. I got to watch some severe weather out in western Oklahoma on Sunday. It all petered out before it got to the Okierover Base Camp.
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