I said I'd start making posts about working on the El Camino last year, but then I killed a MicroSD card and two phones. I lost all my pictures except for old backups three times. Thought it might be time to try again.
Just got my El Camino back on the road today after a couple of months in the garage. The original intent was to replace the worn out door hinges along with a few other targets of opportunity. Took off the bumper, grille, and passenger side fender, swapped the hinges, then spent two days trying to line the door up. Realized that when some idiot put the weatherstrips on backwards, they beat on the body mating surface to make them fit. When I realized that the door would never seal right no matter what I do, I gave up and bought a roll of adhesive-backed weatherstripping that I hope will fill in the gap. Have yet to install it. The alternative is spending hours beating and prying on the body to reshape it. Tried that, but realized quickly that it wouldn't be as easy as it sounds. I still need to do the driver's side door hinges but I'm going to wait until I'm less frustrated with the truck before I pull the other side apart.
While I was there, I noticed that the area just ahead of the door hinges that had rusted through. Cut it open and found an old rat's nest. That's where the AC/heat air intake is, and it definitely explains the weird smell that the air in this car has always had. Tried to make a patch panel out of 16 gauge sheet metal with the intent to weld it in place, but I realized that it's not nearly as easy as it looks to work with metal that thick. If I had a million dollar body shop it might be, but all I have are pliers, hammers, and a vice. Spent four hours trying to form that metal and had at least that amount of time left to go before it would be suitable. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that this body on this truck probably only has about 20 years of life left no matter how much I put into it, so maybe I should just repair it to that standard. As much as I want to keep it alive forever, I don't have $100k to drop on it. The day after this decision, I spent an hour forming a 22 gauge patch panel and used self-tapping screws to hold it in place. For whatever reason, had a really hard time with the screws: those nine screws took another hour by themselves. Anyway, it's not pretty, but it's functional. It's also not visible at all unless the fender is off.
Pic 1: area of body between lower door hinge and wheel well after wire wheeling the panel.
Pic 2: same area, but cut open to reveal the rat's nest.
Pic 3: rat's nest on floor with 4.5" angle grinder for scale. That pile was about six inches across and four inches deep.
Pic 4: hole enlarged, internal structure was wire wheeled or sanded down where necessary. Some of what you see looks like rust, but is actually a red body filler that GM used during assembly.
Pic 5: internal structure has been coated with red anti-rust primer. Right and below is my crappy 22 gauge patch prior to paint. Later painted both the hole and the patch panel black.