I didn't work on the car over the Christmas break because I was out of town for two weeks. Good to get back in the garage!
I got tired of trying to bend the doubler plates over all the wrong things and welded a pipe to my table it really helped.
I cut some slots in the plates to joggled them up over the seat pan. I also drilled a few holes to pull them tight into the corner with some small bolts.
Then some tabs were cut out and tacked up the cross-member brackets.
I tacked up a quick transmission support and removed the long cross-member that goes out to the sub-frame - goodbye forever I hope!
I made a simple support to help line up the brackets, marked the sides and cut out the holes in the tunnel. It took quite a while because I didn't know exactly how I was going to do this at first.
The tabs were trimmed up and tack welded to the doubler plates. This took time taking them in and out of the car many times until it all fit.
I started playing with what the cross member pattern will look like. Here is roughly what it will be (half anyway). I need to check all my angles before I cut out the plates for the cross-member. The trans is a bit low in this photo, slightly over 3 degrees down.
This week I will weld up the mounts and plates and drill a bunch of holes to prepare to plug weld them into the floor. I will also fab up the short cross-member and get it all welded together and bolted in hopefully.