For those of you who have been following along (Thanks, Geo!
) and wondering; there is a certain madness to my method: tonight, installing the trans tunnel fabbed last night.
With the rear part of the tunnel laying on and overlapping the still attached portions of the interior tunnel, the firewall flange is re-attached to the firewall using poorman's Clecos (#8x3/4" sheetmetal screws
). When everything is correctly positioned and the flange is tacked to the flat upper portion of the firewall.
The tacks between the flange and and the "tub" are cut where the firewall is curved and the flange is repositioned against the firewall while maintaing a minimal gap between the flange and the tub. It is then retacked:
Continue with the other side. Then using my plasma cutter, the extraneous tub material is cut away and the joint is ground smooth while adding strengthening tacks:
Eventually, the flange is fully welded on both sides and the welds are cleaned up some:
The upper portion isn't welded as the upper firewall will probably be notched to accommodate the current engine setback.
The nice clean trans tunnel:
contrasted with what it looked like when it arrived:
And the interior trans tunnel all tacked together, ready for me to finish replacing missing/rusted flooring which is where I was a couple of months ago:
Mike