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The
Floor – March 17
As I mentioned on the previous page, that I still
needed to take care of the rotted floorpan on the driver's side.
Well, after 2+ years, I finally tackled it last weekend. Here, in
these three photos, you can see some of the process. Replacing a
floor pan is a dirty, nasty job. It's not overly difficult, but
it is time consuming and really messy. Most of the mess is made
from the cut off wheel removing the old pan. Plus, the road grime/oil
on the bottom side of the remaining floor where you weld up the
new pan likes to catch fire.
Black
= Holes
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The original pan had a fairly large hole
right where the accelerator pedal lived. If it hadn't been
for the rubber floor mat, it would have fallen through to
the ground! In addition to the large hole, there were tons
of smaller holes and extremely thin spots where the original
floor was rotting away.
My first job was to fit the toe panel.
My replacement pan was made up of two parts, |
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the toe panel and the main floor pan directly under the
driver's feet. I had to prefit the new toe panel by test
fitting it and redoing some of the predone bends in it.
I then scribed a line across the floor where I needed to
make my first cut. I made my cuts using a cutoff wheel attached
to my die grinder. I recommend making your cuts one at a
time and rechecking the fit of your panels as it is easy
to remove too much material and leaving yourself with extra
work, as I did. What I ended up doing later was cutting
a 1/2" or so inside my scribe marks to ensure that
I didn't over do it. It's much easier to remove material
than put it back! |
Okay,
I set my new panel in. Made sure it fit as I wanted it to,
and set about tack welding it into place. After I had done
that, I went around and welded it into place. Warning! Firewall
insulation seems to enjoy catching on fire, pay attention!
Now that the toe panel was in place, I
repeated the procedure with the main floor panel. A couple
of things I forgot to mention: |
Toe
Board Tacked
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Check under your car for fuel and brake lines, linkages,
and anything else that may be damaged before you start
cutting out your old pan. Also, cars like my Ranchero
are unibody cars, and the pans are spot welded to reinforcement
rails. If you want to do a real nice job, grind out the
old spot welds and remove the remaining pieces of the
original floor pan. That way when you look under the car,
the new pans don't look like they are simply sitting on
top of old rotted material. Sanitary is my motto.
Job
Complete
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Once
the whole floor was welded in, I ground down any
welds that were a little rough just to make things
tidy. Fortunately, if your welding skills are ace,
you can hide them under your fresh carpet or floor
mats. I will finish off my project by treating the
whole floor pan with a rust preventative paint such
as POR-15.
I'm looking forward to having
a heater that |
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isn't diluted by cold air rushing in through the
rust holes. I'm also looking forward to purchasing
that NOS rubber floor mat that will finish off my
new floor so it looks like it came from the factory. |
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