The battery section of my 71 CS core support is in pretty bad shape, the rest is in great shape. (pics of damage attached)

Has any of you tried to repair this area of your core supports? What kind of results? What are the biggest issues to beware of? is it worth it?

I have a 72 support with a similar (though not as bad battery area. the general condition of the 72 support is not in as good a shape as the 71.

I just hate throwing things away if they can be reasonably repaired.

Thanks!

 

Seriously, Has anyone attempted a repair of the battery section like this? I am thinking of grafting the passenger side of the donor to the drivers side of my current core support. Any thoughts whatsoever would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

I've not done the repair myself, but it seems like if you clean it real good you should be able to weld in a patch. John

 

There used to be a patch panel available for this area, but I haven't been able to find one lately.

 

Although no where near as bad as the OPs (which is fixable I am sure), mine needs fixing also. I suck at welding, so need to find someone locally to fix.

 

I would say that the first thing to do is to get rid of the rust so you can see exactly what you are dealing with. When I redid mine I used this technique: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt--8v..._rust_removal/

I used this for everything that I could, for the core support I got the biggest trash can I could find and did one side then turned it over and did the other side. After it comes out you just run a wire wheel over it, rinse it off, dry it and put what ever paint coating on it that you want (I used POR 15 on almost everything.) This process will take off all of the rust and none of the good metal. After you get done cleaning it up all the bad areas will be truely exposed and a welder can see what needs to be done.

 

Mine is rotted a bit as well in this area it seems. I did not even notice before until I started removing things from the core yesterday. Anyone have pics of what this area looks like in good condition? Also, what is this square nut/bolt for (goes in 2nd hole from right in 2nd last pic)?

 

Depending if you have a 350 or 455, there are 2 different battery trays you can use. So there could be different mounting locations. My big block tray was low in front so I used a short section of steel to level it.