Well I’m excited to start this progress thread on my 5 speed 89 Gt. The car was originally an auto and was turned into a 5 speed but done pretty badly. Now that I’ve suffered through getting the car to run right and have memorized the surging idle checklist by heart, it’s finally time to tackle some of the much needed body/chassis work. I’ve torn down the car and removed the disgusting carpet. This is some of the stuff I found underneath
Inside the area where there should be a shifter boot there was this weird material shoved in there and whatever it was leaves your hands black and very sticky. I’ve got a new manual transmission tunnel hump ready to go in along with a brand new lower shift boot. I also plan on replacing this clapped out short throw with a Pro 5.0 short throw.
On to the next piece of horror
This car has the typical stud ripped out of the cross brace but it had a hole drilled in the floor pan with a long bolt with a circular flat had ran through it so it could still have the driver seat bolted down.
Now finally onto the kinda heart breaking part of my findings.
This is the passenger side near where the rear seat bolts go. It cracked and then rusted a little and has started to kinda separate from the rocker. Also the floor pan area closest to the passenger rocker is tweaked so that the bolt for the seat track goes in straight down rather than at an angle like the rest do. This worry’s me because i feel like that’s going to make installing the seat braces for the subframe connectors next to impossible. Should I buy the floor pan for the passenger side or just have it patched?
Unfortunately cracks don’t stop there. Here a few I found on the drivers side although not as bad I’m still concerned.
This is on the drivers side very close to the rocker. It has split away from the rocker a little bit on this side and also cracked a little over to the right as well.
On to the last crack thankfully
This crack is where the floor pan transitions to the Trans tunnel. That one doesn’t seem too bad to repair at all.
I believe the drivers side is a bit better of than the passenger side. Although I’ve seen floor pans way worse than this and have still been repaired properly.
Here’s a picture of what everything overall looks like
Oh yeah almost forgot to mention that I absolutely stripped the T50 torx bolt that secures the driver side seat belt receiver. I have no idea what I’m going to do about that. The rest came out with little to issue but that one fought and fought until my ratchet and cheater bar combo slipped and stripped it out. Any advice on how I could go about removing that? I had to cut the old carpet around it to get it out and I’d prefer if I don’t have to do that with my new carpet. The guy I’m going to have doing all of this work is great at this type of stuff so I have no doubt it’ll all get done right I just don’t know if I should replace the passenger floor pan or not. I’m leaning towards that option.
Overall I’m pretty happy with the way things look. I thought it was much worse. Although I’d love to do a lot the cutting and welding myself I just don’t have the means or location to do it.
I’ll be updating this thread as the work gets done on the car and eventually you all will get to join me as I attempt to re dye some of the interior on the car. I’ll also be getting a cup holder console to go back in.
Also one last bonus photo. How and why is the metal around the shifter even like this?
Inside the area where there should be a shifter boot there was this weird material shoved in there and whatever it was leaves your hands black and very sticky. I’ve got a new manual transmission tunnel hump ready to go in along with a brand new lower shift boot. I also plan on replacing this clapped out short throw with a Pro 5.0 short throw.
On to the next piece of horror
This car has the typical stud ripped out of the cross brace but it had a hole drilled in the floor pan with a long bolt with a circular flat had ran through it so it could still have the driver seat bolted down.
Now finally onto the kinda heart breaking part of my findings.
This is the passenger side near where the rear seat bolts go. It cracked and then rusted a little and has started to kinda separate from the rocker. Also the floor pan area closest to the passenger rocker is tweaked so that the bolt for the seat track goes in straight down rather than at an angle like the rest do. This worry’s me because i feel like that’s going to make installing the seat braces for the subframe connectors next to impossible. Should I buy the floor pan for the passenger side or just have it patched?
Unfortunately cracks don’t stop there. Here a few I found on the drivers side although not as bad I’m still concerned.
This is on the drivers side very close to the rocker. It has split away from the rocker a little bit on this side and also cracked a little over to the right as well.
On to the last crack thankfully
This crack is where the floor pan transitions to the Trans tunnel. That one doesn’t seem too bad to repair at all.
I believe the drivers side is a bit better of than the passenger side. Although I’ve seen floor pans way worse than this and have still been repaired properly.
Here’s a picture of what everything overall looks like
Oh yeah almost forgot to mention that I absolutely stripped the T50 torx bolt that secures the driver side seat belt receiver. I have no idea what I’m going to do about that. The rest came out with little to issue but that one fought and fought until my ratchet and cheater bar combo slipped and stripped it out. Any advice on how I could go about removing that? I had to cut the old carpet around it to get it out and I’d prefer if I don’t have to do that with my new carpet. The guy I’m going to have doing all of this work is great at this type of stuff so I have no doubt it’ll all get done right I just don’t know if I should replace the passenger floor pan or not. I’m leaning towards that option.
Overall I’m pretty happy with the way things look. I thought it was much worse. Although I’d love to do a lot the cutting and welding myself I just don’t have the means or location to do it.
I’ll be updating this thread as the work gets done on the car and eventually you all will get to join me as I attempt to re dye some of the interior on the car. I’ll also be getting a cup holder console to go back in.
Also one last bonus photo. How and why is the metal around the shifter even like this?