Flintstone style '66 Thunderbird

Here is a very pleasant diversion from the usual stuff I work on:

(Funky angles avoiding the plate.) This is Chris' '66 Ford Tunderbird.

Why do I say it is Flintstone style?

I hope you can figure it out without me needing to explain it.

Here's the new 18g panel to get put in:

I was surprised by the interior:

What people say about things not being made how they used to be made is entirely true. This stuff is almost 50 years old . . . and it all still works and just needs some cleanup and polish, honestly. Let's see your 2012 model year car last 15, let alone 50.

Possibly the best part of the car:

I also really like the fuzzy dice. I'm weird like that.

Test fitting:

This was after a lot of cutting. Why more cutting? The floorpan had already been replaced some time in the past, and I had to take that layer off in order to get the floor pan to fit correctly. This took hours of careful trimming and prying to just get to the test fit point that you see in the above photo.

Marking, trimming, wash, rinse, repeat:

After a few more hours of carefully doing a little tweak hear, a touch more grinding there, I got the panel to fit well.

With the pan in place, I traced out the supports and then marked spaces to drill holes:

Pilot holes to verify measurements:

The holes matched up perfectly (thanks to careful measuring) so I popped the rest of the pilot holes:

All of them lined up with the flanges on the supports, so I drilled them out to about 1/4" in order to get a decent imitation spot weld:

The sun was setting, so I just busted out the rest of the welding and did some other patchwork underneath the car that I didn't get pictures of.

Here's the final product:

It's rock solid, with very, very little deflection even with all of my (fat) weight on it. It will last a very long time, too, especially with the right treatment of the panels. underneath and on top.