No More Floors

Thanks to Don, Todd, and Jerry the compressor is back in action and so am I. Each of these guys told me the problem sounded like a bad capacitor. They were right.

The girls stayed in Tallahassee while we were out of town this week. Tammy went to pick them up and that gave me the day to spend on the car. When I got home from work yesterday I spent time just standing there looking at it. That's how the Warnicks found me when they stopped by on their way to the Berry's. This is how I tend to answer questions and solve problems of this nature. It's slow but so far I haven't broke anything too bad. After pondering, I realized that the floors really needed to be the next step. The floors mount on top of the front frame reinforcement (crossmember). That reinforcement needs to be replaced so the floors had to come out first for access. It still seems the front of the frame (the frame head assy) will need to be replaced as well. That's a bit more structural than I had planned, or wanted, but I just don't see any way to do the job right without this. The frame head and reinforcement will probably be the next things to come off. They'll need to be in place for the floors to be installed. I went ahead and removed the front end as an assembly (suspension, steering, braking, wheel assemblies, etc) in order to make way for removing the frame head. Remarkably the front end assy is held on by just 4 bolts. These bolt the front end assy to the frame head. If you look closely enough at the photos you can see the four bolts stuck in the frame head and thus get an idea of what held the front end of the car's structure together.



As much as I'd like to keep going, there will probably be a little delay. Not only do I need to order parts (frame head and reinforcement) but the welding and cutting of these is a bit more involved. Since these are structural, they're not thin sheetmetal or skimpy spot welds. I'll need to consult some of my more experienced resources (Jerry, Barry, Rick, Conner, etc) for their sage advise.