1965 Pontiac GTO Major Body Rebuild

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Quality custom & restoration sheet metal work & repair

Welds ground clean.

The trunk floor & front junk repair patches are cut out.

The left side cowl outer extension was trashed time for a rebuild.

Then fully tig welded & ground smooth.

Finishing up the trunk floor drops, its not a simple piece quite a bit of rework needed to be done to be accurate & be usable, the repo is just a starting point a lot of the time but now every thing will fit where its supposed to.

My rotisserie has full length 2x4 x 1/4 wall support rails for all of the body mounts & sill clamps to anchor to.

A new one had to be made.

The inside was painted with rust prevenative paint.

The toe board being fit on the right side.

Patches were made then tig welded & welds ground smooth.

Now for the left side old cut out.

The floor pan is fully welded in & all the welds ground clean its all in the details.

Rust preventive paint applyed

Rust preventative paint applied to the under side of the tubs

The inner cowl brace was very holly & paper thin so a new one was made no repo available at this time

Trunk floor sides need some attention.

The outer turned down edge needed so work also.

The old out & the new in.

I custom built my rotisserie so it has lots of support front, back in body mount areas & the sill clamps, no sagging bodys on this one.

The rear package tray that was finished up earlier can now be welded in after a little de rusting & rust preventative painting.

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By keeping every thing in square the new floor pan fit just lie it was supposed to.

Bottom side of the torque box nice and clean

Some more added to the repo trunk floor drops they were not totally correct & were missing some sections of metal needed.

A pattern was made so a new one could be built.

The new package tray section ready to install.

But the outer sections nee some repair work also.

The trunk gaps real nice & even all the way around.

Now the same process for the other side

Its all in the details & that is what has being shown here this is not a TV 6 week wonder build. This project took about 4 months. It needed lots of hand fab panels as they were not available at the time. This body is now ready for another 45 years of driving un like the 6 week wonder builds that start showing the bad repairs in 1 to 3 years which means you paid for bad work. The owner received a cd with over 500 pictures of documentation showing what was done to bring his classic muscle car sheet metal back to life.

One of the body to chassis inner structure mounts needed to be made.

Lower sections for the cowl front & side were made

In a past life some idiot decided to weld the body anchor bolt.

The new floor drop fit & installed.

Now to install the right toe board.

Quarter is back off now its time to finish the wheel tub & inner structure repairs.

The inside will need some clean up & patch work.

A new piece had to be made for the right side kick panel

Most of the rear quarters were cut off to open up the inner structure for the blast shop that way it will be derusted as much as possible

The repo quarter is long so it will be trimmed for fit.

The seam areas were painted with rust prevenative paint before it is seam sealed.

Seam sealer is applied for the factory look as original.

Part of the original floor drop was usable so it was added to the new repo piece.

Finished welded ground clean & looking factory fresh.

The right repo outer wheel tub was trimmed then fit onto the old section for marking where to trim.

Typical back window rust out.

welded & ground smooth now looking factory.

Now with all the new outer pieces removed the inside badly rusted pieces can be made, you have to make sure the outside pieces will fit properly before building the inside pieces. Its all about paying attention to the details.

The inside of the body mount torque boxes were derusted & painted with rust preventative paint

The torque box was also welded to the toe board section & ground clean for a factory look.

With both toe boards now installed it has a factory clean look

The new lower plate was made.

The right rear inner wheel tub is looking a little rough on the outer edges.

A lot cleaner door was located for the left side.

Time to build a new one yes you can order re pops but only 1 was needed so it is faster to just build it.

Its time to de rust the inner structure.

All of the front cowl seams were seam sealed.

The fire wall & floor pan are all seam sealed

The new panel being tack welded in.

The old was cut out & the new installed.

Brace checking for fit in place along with the new inner panel which still needs to be trimmed for the butt welding..

Every thing has been ground smooth & clean.

The new quarter was temporarly installed for fit .

After tack welding in the toe board area then it was fully welded & the welds ground clean both sides.

The new inner panel fully welded & ground smooth looking factory.

New rear tail panel supports were made re pros were not available.

Time for the trunk floor the rear lip had to be reworked to fit properly for the GTO verses Chevy or Buick so time for some rebuild.

A small patch was made for the top of the rocker.

Now its time to finish off the right rear wheel tub.

Now with all the repair work done the inside was painted with rust prvenative paint.

After all the patch work was done the whole frame area was rust preventative painted.

The lower inner kick panel was fabbed up.

The brace is now welded in place.

Under side of the previous junk repair.

The bottom nut plate welded in & ground smooth, this was a critical body mount place.

Typical after market sheet metal fits decent but not dead on so a little massage work so it lines up with the original cast fender extension. Some hammer, dolly & slap work to make it look correct.

The old floor pan & trunk floor a totally gone, with my rotisserie I can remove it all & not loose any of the body square ness.

The rear window channel on both side needed so attention, so repair sections were fabbed up.

The left trunk floor drop is swiss cheese also that is why both sides were being done.

No shortage of sculpture material here some places were almost 3/4 of an inch deep.

Time to finish up the build the last of the panel installation the rear quarters, the seams are but welded not short cut lap welds un less it is a factory area lap weld

The inner tub has some rust mite problems , you can see the new patch installed & finished in the right picture.

..The floor pan was not blasted as it was going to be replaced, it was left in for structural support while blasting.

Now the final enclosing of the cowl front.

Now for the toe board areas

All of old bad sheet metal is out of the way & cleaned up

A new trunk gutter section was bent up using my Baileigh Magnetic brake then contour shaped with the Baileigh shrinker stretcher, finally tig tacked in place.

Upper left hinge mount plate was stripped.

Installed on my rotisserie.

It was a 2 person job fitting in the floor pan and yes it fit in between the rotisserie rails at an angle then dropped into place. Having the wright equipment makes a job a whole lot easer.

Back up on its side the front body to frame mount on the right side needed some attention.

The underside of the wheel tubs after welding to the trunk floor nice & clean looking.

The windshield areas will need some attention along with the dash front.

Then the pieces were tack welded together.

Welded and ground smooth to look factory

The last of the fab work a couple of sections to the trunk gutter seal areas need some attention & the body is done.

Its time to head to the blast shop to get it cleaned & ready for rebuild

The new floor pan was a 1 piece with all the braces installed a cleaner & faster install bringing it in from the bottom

Now its time for the floor pan.

The main body doesn't look to bad here but wait till you see what's coming.

The main roof section was not blasted to avoid warping.

New lip welded in ground & the panel has been derusted

This was a major body build & there are lots of pictures so give it time to load

The torque box was derusted then painted with rust prevenative paint.

The underside is painted with rust preventative paint.

Inside the trunk shot of the floor drop fit in place.

The repo trunk floor drops will need rework to be correct.

The trunk floor now fits & looks factory its all in the details for a high quality restoration.

Its real hard to tell a new panel was installed.

Another right door was located & checked for fit.

Back from the blast shop its not a pretty sight tons of rust out repair, no problem that's what I do. As you can see there was cross bracing installed in the trunk areas before going to the blast shop.

The support panel under the package tray needs some attention.

1965 Pontiac GTO Major Body Rebuild Restoration.

The rear package tray needed a rebuild

The new outer pieces were removed.

The rear trunk to back window filler panel need a littlte claen up then the underside was painted with rust preventive paint.

The package tray is all finished up along with the rear filler panel, gaps are real nice.

Now for the lower hinge plate.

Both sides after the repairs now on to the next phase.

After a test fit the old rusted section was removed & the replacement panel checked for fit.

A little further digging found another patch over the original floor this made it even more scary.

Just before installing the floor pan all the plug weld holes were pre drilled.

Now for the left side again a new repo outer tub section will be used

With the way my custom built rotisserie is designed nothing will loose its alignment when lots of panels are removed, it is adaptable to just about any vehicle.