needed it welded in a little for the next step so I squared it up and tacked around as much as touched, which was quite a bit, shouldnt need much patching. on the bottom I was able to slice both the patch and the firewall in sections to make the contour it needed, it worked really well.
IMG_0390 by
Joe Doh, on Flickr
I am ashamed at how much time it took to remove the gauges, what a pain in the poker that I had forgotten. some of the nuts arent quite 3/8 (big) and arent quite 11/32 (small), if thats freaking possible? probably just corrosion.
IMG_0392 by
Joe Doh, on Flickr
I needed a pattern of the booster mount but I just welded it to the firewall. luckily this is not the first s10 I have cut up. I think I still have a whole 98 blazer firewall section in the back but I also had this one on the shelf. you may not see it underneath but I already cut the center hole and drilled the mount holes.
IMG_0395 by
Joe Doh, on Flickr
it even had a bracket still on it that I was able to bolt to the aluminum pedal bracket to get the dimensions.
IMG_0400 by
Joe Doh, on Flickr
the spacing of the pedal was 3 5/8 but that wasnt wide enough to let the nuts go on the booster studs, so I built some medallions from some 10 ga and set it up to weld inside the 1/8, which would give strength to the pedal area from the doubler, and also let the inside width get to 4 3/8 (roughly) and clear the booster nuts. thusly
IMG_0401 by
Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_0402 by
Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_0403 by
Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_0407 by
Joe Doh, on Flickr
I know it LOOKS like I didnt get the pedal lined up with the rod on the booster but the explanation is that the booster isnt screwed down yet and is leaning down outside the firewall, which means the rod is leaning up. I didnt feel like stressing the rod for a trial fit haha.
more to come! I know it doesnt look like it but this is most of the work done, adding the column mounts to the bracket then adding bracing is all that is left, easy peasy from here on in.