First off...I bought a 1955 1st series Chevy that looked good! Since living in Arizona for the last 35 years I never thought of giving the chassis a looking over? Yep! You guessed it bad rot and rust. Well after getting pointed to a few good parts suppliers, patch panels were purchased and a used mig welder. Iv'e done quite a bit of gas welding and a little arc so with a junk yard hood and practice I started to show some decent welds. With forums like this and just paying attention I learned quite a bit just reading posts like this relaying experiences. So far I replaced on the drivers side..rocker panel.inner and outer cowl panels,inside kick panel and part of drivers toe-board. I had so many braces vertically and horizontally that it got to be quite interesting welding! Even had some wood working clamps out! Measurements taken before the cuttin out was critical. Made my day when fender and door were put back on..and with a little tweaking the door fit as good as new.
I hope someone gets something useful out of this, I know Iv'e enjoyed the rebuild so far.
And now on to the passenger side!!