It was a silver ss that's already scrapped

 

Were both of these cars 5 speeds ?

 

No the panel was auto, I took out the entire dash insert and firewall plate from the auto panel and swapped in the 5 speed SS ones.

 

Man, you've done a lot of work, you must have really wanted an SS panel.

 

I loved my SS, I've made many memories in it but it was completely rotted underneath and I found this ex fire vehicle panel for pretty cheap and I really wanted to keep it alive. This was the old ss

 

Ah, Canadian winters will rot away your favourite vehicles ! Where in Ontario are you? I might be in your neck of the woods!

 

You are, I'm in Fort Erie Ontario

 

Northern Ohio road salt is just as notorious. I've found in very helpfully to run it through a drive-thru car wash with "underbody wash" feature, several times during the Winter, especially when the weather warms, then a couple of times in Spring after a good rain has washed the last of the salt from the pavement. I also drilled spray holes in a 10' long piece of PVC, and attached a garden hose fitting. Our Winter-driven 2011 w/ 100K+ has little underbody rust.

It's common for cars here broken underneath in less than 10 years. Calcium chloride is the worst. If not removed, it draws mosture from the air and cause corrosion all year, even in dry weather. Heat accelerates the oxidation reaction, so even worse in Summer.

 

Did you use all the SS power steering stuff including the rack? Did you use the SS torsion arm from the rear suspension, or was it too rusty? (Sorry if any of this was already answered.)

 

Yes pulp friction, everything was swapped over. The rear beam has surface rust but is still functioning. The rockers were completely gone underneath like when I took out the plastic trim I could see the ground through the mounting hole. Both rear wheel wells, tailgate near the latch and the rear crash bar were all toast.