Next up was to repair the rusted out rocker boxes. They were so rusty that the car body had shifted and was in a twist. Nothing lined up, doors or trunk lid. All of the previous patch work on the rockers held the body out of alignment, so the door alignment would have been pretty much impossible until the old mess was removed.

This shows some of the bracing we welded in the body as we started removing the old floors and rocker boxes.

Here we are working on the door alignment to square the body back up. The strap is pulling the bottom of the cowl back to raise the door and you’ll also notice a friction jack (also called a monkey on a stick) keeping the distance of the door opening like we need for door gaps.

Once the doors fit with good gaps it’s time to fit in the rocker boxes. The rocker boxes are an important part of these bodies because of the their strength.

This is the left front rocker box underneath the cowl