1989 NHP SSP

[05pwrstrk]

Time has been on my side lately so I've been trying to get some more things done on my car. The heater core was original, to my knowledge, so I felt it was a strategic move to pull it prior to installing new carpet. I recently pulled the seats, carpet and dash to replace the heater core. I'm not in a rush so the project has not been to bad. I actually enjoy these tedious processes like pulling a dash in a Mustang. I did find a gremlin that will need to be fixed. Check out the pictures.

The new heater core doesn't have this nice brace like the old one does.

OLD

NEW


This disaster was found under my drivers seat. Any ideas? I've done a lot of sheet metal repair work on other vehicle bodies and I'm confident I can repair this with some 16ga sheet steel. The affected areas about the size of an iPhone. What do you guys think? Whatever I end up doing it will be better than the hack job someone else has already done.