Rear Floor and Tail Panels

More sheet metal parts have arrived so I can get back to making from scratch the patch panels that are no longer available. The two rear floor panels from Black Car arrived Saturday, and while they look nice and the basic shape is correct, none of the body mount cups are located and stamped. As with the front floor panels, I will have to make my own. At least Black Car beat their delivery date by two weeks.

Black Car also sent the 4-door rear wheel well/rocker panel patch that I will have to modify by cutting off the portion that fits inside the door opening. The little formed piece is large enough to cover most of the rust through at the wheel well and I can use flat stock for the rest.

The tail panel and trunk floor arrived from Big-M, but unfortunately I can’t use the trunk floor as it is nearly as bad as the one I’m removing. The replacement tail panel has some rust through on the lower side in the license plate recess, but it’s far more solid than the one on the car. But, to add to the difficulty, since it’s from a ’55 both the ends will have to be cut off and joined to the old part where the shapes match.



This would certainly be easier if I owned a ’57 Chevy, but if all new parts could be ordered from a catalog, the job wouldn’t be half as satisfying. You can rebuild most any Chevy with little more a checkbook, but rebuilding a Mopar older than ’63 is a creative challenge as well.

I had intended to take some more pictures but that will have to wait a few days. Yesterday I was sweating in 78F sunshine with the workshop doors open, but right now it’s snowing and sleeting with a strong north wind and the thermometer has been dropping steadily. It now reads 19F and is supposed to hit 14 before morning, but at least the low temp prevents the freezing rain they had predicted.