Wilma

As expected, the "work" done by or to a previous owner masked a substantial amount of metal without substance.  Brown doilies in place of sheet steel on the driver's side, scattered clusters of negative space on the passenger.  Since I tend to be backwards in general, I've ordered the pictures likewise.

Righty-blighty:

Lefty-looseohgoddamnit:

I was surprised to find that the passenger side would turn out to be the bigger pain in the ass to form a patch panel for, on account of the contours.  Compared to the driver's side, it had been spared the worst of oxygen's creeping, gnawing hunger.  Here's what ended up being left of the passenger side:

I found an unexpected amount of comfort from the rot being cut out of both sides of the floor (mostly due to being able to put my feet on the ground).  Nonetheless, if I didn't replace the metal, I'd start getting tickets for the trash I normally throw on the passenger's side floor.  After thinking about it for a while, I decided the cheaper alternative was to fill the void with metal that wasn't rusted through.

I don't have much in the way of metal shaping tools, so I was glad to have a friend's flange tool on loan to accompany my hammer, pocket-sized parallel jaw pliers, busted-ass tin snips, and (most importantly) a work bench who's builder wasn't concerned with tight tolerances when fitting the 2x4s together.  Thanks to these tools, I was able to form some 22ga sheet (courtesy of the same friend- thanks again, duder) into crude approximations the missing floor sections.  Here's how the passenger side looked when mostly tacked in:

As ever, things are still moving forward, despite the bullshit surprises. I don't at all regret chopping out the floors, though I wish I had taken the Gremlin out for a quick trip to get some gigantic ribs at the drive-in.  Would've made it easier to check out the underside of the vehicle after my meal arrived.