To fully replace 356 battery box walls?
 

The battery box in my 63 356 was repaired poorly, probably many years ago, with flat sheet metal. I’ve cut out the flat sheet metal from the floor and back/front/passenger side walls. I have purchased all the repair panels from Stoddard already.

My question is, I should drill out all the spot welds and fully replace all 4 walls, or just cut out the few inches I need from the repair panels and butt weld them in? I don’t plan on cutting off the nose panel or fenders.

I'm leaning towards fully replacing everything, as that much butt welding in a confined location seems real annoying.

This will be my first major welding project. I have a Lincoln MIG welder with gas, but am considering picking up a spot welder as I have several other areas that need attention.

Pretty ballsy first project. I like it!

What to do depends on your plans for the car. Know anything not original methods will be picked apart by if you want top $$ someday. If you are going just solid repair thats your choice, but know it going in and dont try to hide it. Make it solid, cover with seam sealer and move on. Thats a good option for a driver but a project car for others. To me its make it solid, dont get carried away and use the car.

My personal rule is replace as little of the original metal as needed to erase the damage done. Butt welds are easy grinding them smooth is the key. Many home level spot welders are limited in form and function.

So many variables in this job. 95% of the variable is your skill with the welders. The other 5 percent is the metal you are trying to weld to on the car. The pictures make it look like the factory metal that hasn't been cut out is still in need of some SERIOUS prep cleaning and more cutting back. Trying to butt weld to what is shown in the pics will just cause a lot of disintegrating metal. If you aren't that skillful, it will probably be less than a minute before you burn a hole right through one of those brand new pieces. If you are skillful, then I would still cut it all out and spot weld it in the same way the factory did it. However, as stated, many spot welders suck. Attempting to butt weld and blend all that is more likely than not, going to lead to eternal sorrow. I think it's outstanding that you are going for it, but I would practice endlessly on the same gauge of practice metal before I ever went for it with my good pieces. Essentially, if you don't spot weld, you are going to be doing a jillion little tack welds anyway, because it's pretty tough to turn down a welder enough to lay a bead on metal that thin and not have it just warp right up, burn through, or be too cold and just bounce the gun back. My 2 cents. I wish you all the best and hope it comes out as you hoped.