Day 1 - Where Do I Start?

My original plan was to strip down the body of all unnecessary pieces (brackets, bolts, wires, etc) and send it off for sand blasting.  After getting a closer look, I'm afraid sand blasting may disintegrate some metal I need to use as reference for new metal.  Now, before it goes to blasting, I'm going to shore up some of the more rotted structural areas.  This way when I do take it, I won't lose anything I can't reproduce.  Pictures, pictures, pictures.  The PO also made lots of very detailed sketches with dimensions of several sections of the car as he disassembled it.  This will be helpful.

After removing anything that wasn't part of the body, I want to assess the true extent of rust.  To do this, I need to take a look at the cowl support structure behind the door hinges and fender.  After doing some research, I decided to remove the fender.

To make it easier to blend the welds back into the panel, I want to cut on the curve instead of the flat surface.

I want to remove the back edge of the fender from the door frame by removing the spot welds.  I hit the edge with a sander to make the spot weld locations a little more visible.

Next, I used a spot weld hole saw to drill out each spot weld.  This was my first attempt and I found that pilot holes help keep the hole saw centered and it works much better.

Here are the 2 fenders freed from the car.  See that spot in the upper middle?  That is remnants of a cheap rust repair.  Body filler needs something to stick to, apparently scrap metal works great.  This is the good panel, the other has about a 12" strip that will have to be replaced with real metal, no body filler going back in.

 

With the fenders out of the way, Now I can see just how bad the rust is.  Its pretty bad.

Good news, the cowl structure is mostly just bent sheet metal so something I can fabricate myself

Now having a true measure of the damage, I don't want to do anything with this until the new sills arrive.  This interface point is crucial to a properly aligned car.  I think between the sketches and what little metal I have left, I can get everything straight.  All that is left to do is get the body off the frame so its easier to work with.

Thanks to Jag-Loves, I found some plans for making a roll around frame.  I took a few liberties but the height measurements were very helpful.  I welded this together upside down so I could use the car frame mounts to ensure they line up with the body.

With this done, the front half is on hold until parts come in.  Next time, I'll start on the rear.