Bringing up the Rear Part 2

After fabricating and installing the inner patch on the driver's side of the trunk, I discovered that there is an aftermarket panel for that area. However, after reading about the difficulties some folks had trying to make the piece fit properly, I think I'm glad I saved the $80 or so.
Over the past week I've been working on getting the replacement portion of the trunk deck installed. I also found a good used replacement for the spare tire well, which came this week.
The deck went in pretty good, despite my rushing ahead and not triple checking my fit before welding.

New section of deck in place, compared to the old rotted section. A big difference!

I realized, after I had welded in the passenger corner of the deck, but thankfully before I had welded the whole thing in, that I hadn't paid attention to the alignment of the piece relative to the placement of the tail pan. It was correct on the driver's side, but a good half inch lower on the passenger side. I had a good opportunity to find out how good my spot welds were after spending two hours one afternoon grinding and cutting to break the corner free and realign it.

From below. Things are looking MUCH better!

After getting myself back on track, I turned my focus to the other rotted areas of the trunk floor. A large portion of the driver's side of the trunk looked like swiss cheese, a lot of it being in the channels that form the support of the floor. However, the old section of trunk that I cut out just happened to have the same contours, and those areas were still very solid. Recycle!

Recycling the old sheet metal

The extra patching took the better part of the week, working one area, one piece at a time. By Saturday, I was pretty satisfied with the amount of rust holes that I'd eliminated. The remaining pin holes could be filled in with metal fill or even seam sealer. A couple of hours grinding down my sloppy, but solid, welds, and I felt satisfied enough to shoot a coat of etching primer down.

Bit by bit, getting rid of the rust

No more swiss cheese!

Sunday morning, before it got too ungodly hot, I pulled out the sandblaster again and settled in under the car. 60 years of rust, dirt and undercoating were blasted away in an hour.
I mixed up a batch of primer and gave the underside and the trunk floor a good coating, and that's where I'm at now. Next step is to fill in and smooth out my welding with some metal fill, and then I'll finally attack the tail pan. Hopefully, but the end of next weekend, that'll all be done. Hopefully.

Finally seeing some light at the end of the trunk

Bringing up the rear Part 1

The trunk and tail pan area of Old Yeller are in need of the most extensive repairs (not counting the floor pans and rockers, which were done 16 years ago).

Outdoors for the first time in 16 years. The rusty quarter is where I stopped back in 2000 and never primed the metal.

Since it's still sweltering hot here, there's not much I can do in the afternoons, when I have time. However, I decided to start pecking away at the trunk rust just to keep the project moving forward.
I had purchased a replacement rear trunk support and trunk floor section back those 16 years ago, so I pulled them out to see how they were holding up. The brace showed no signs of aging, and the floor section had just a glaze of surface rust from sitting exposed all these years.

The replacement pieces will finally go in place!

These are quality parts that I purchased from the old Classic Chevy International, and the fitment bore that out. The trunk floor section lined up almost perfectly, as did the brace.
Full of confidence, I whipped out the grinder and in less than an hour I had the whole area cut away back to solid metal.

Out with the old trunk floor and tail pan....

Once the back half of the trunk floor was removed, I realized it would be much easier to stand in the open gap and reach all the corners of the trunk to sandblast. In spite of the heat, I suited up in my protective gear and went to blasting. After a good solid hour the trunk was reasonably stripped, and many more pinholes were revealed. Fortunately, the old section of trunk floor that I cut out has some solid areas that will work nicely to repair these rotted areas.

....and away with 60 years of rust and paint.

There are two areas on either side of the tail pan (the lower edge of the trunk opening), that have rusted through. I have been thinking all this time that I would simply fab a couple of patches to fill the holes, but once I started cutting sheet metal out I realized that the whole area was too far gone to patch. Years of water and debris have rendered both of those corners completely rotted, so my simple patching plan was tossed aside. Out came the credit card so I could order replacement patches for both corners. I decided to spend the extra $70 bucks or so and get a new tail pan as well, instead of spending hours trying to salvage what I had.

There's no salvaging this

The corner patches make up the area below and to the inside of each tail light. The start at the seam that runs down from the tail light and continue inward to where it meets the tail pan.
These replacement patches were nowhere near a good match to the original contours of the car, so I decided to only cut and use a portion of each one to just repair the actual rusted areas. This would also mean less cutting and forming, which is always a good thing.
Once I had the corner sections cut out, and the corresponding replacement pieces cut, I took a better look at the insides. Besides the outer panel, which is part of the exterior of the car, there is an inner panel that forms the sides of the trunk, and which continues around the inner trunk to meet the rear tail pan.

Surprise! The inner panel is just as bad

Again, there was too much metal rusted away to be able to fudge an easy patch. However, I realized that, with a little persuasion, the remaining pieces of the new corner patches could be formed to create a reasonable patch.
Yesterday, I spent the morning slowly cutting, forming, cutting and forming until I had a reasonably good facsimile of the original inner trunk panel below the right tail light. In doing so I was able to eliminate about 90% of the rust holes, with the few remaining small enough to fill with seam sealer.

Making the most of the leftover pieces of the outer patch panel

After welding in the inner piece, I then fitted the outer patch until both fit together pretty nice. A few dozen spot welds later, and I now have a very solid corner to reattach the trunk floor and tail pan to. Today I'll tackle the other side, which--hopefully--should go faster now that I have a plan.

The finished product. A good two weekend's worth of work!