Floor Pan Questions

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PocketAces

PocketAces

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Just ripped out my nasty carpet and found lots of nasty stuff underneath. I have a bunch of question about what I'm seeing.

How many holes did the factory drill for seats in 1965? I have 8 smaller holes that I can tell are obviously not original. The larger inboard holes with the reinforcements next to the tunnel fit my bucket seats. Out board I have two sets of larger holes. The most out board holes were plugged with rubber plugs. These look like oringinal holes. Inboard from those are two more holes which fit my seats, but they don't look like the factory holes. I notice that the two sides are not symetrical with the passenger seat more inboard than the drivers seat. Also, the seat tracks are not symetrical. Given the 8 extra holes I'm thinking the stock bucket seats I have might not have come with the car.

The area of the floor under my front seats appears to be bent down in the middle. I am assuming that the reinforcing grooves that run left to right should be straight and unbent. Is this a correct assumption?

The front floor pans look solid, but the rears both have holes with the passengers side being the worst. Looks like the replacement panels for sale only go back as far as the seam. But I have rust holes behind the seam (see picture around the rear most drain hole). I'm guessing nobody makes this piece and that I will either have to fab something or find a donor car.

I'm interested in advice on what to do. Given the way the floor is all bent under the seats and all the holes that need to be welded shut, would it perhaps makes sense to get an entire floor from a donor car? Am I underestimating the work required to extract the entire floor pan from the cross member and all around the perimeter? What issues are encountered when replacing the hump? I assume the car needs to be well supported to keep things straight.

Advice welcome.
 

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That floor's rock solid where I come from!

Maybe at some point in it's life it had an owner drill the floor for some non-original seats? Maybe massaged the floor a bit to clear. Just a hunch but I've seen it done often enough that it's a possibility.

Removing the whole floor pan is gonna be a matter of drilling spot welds then re-welding and seam sealing in the new one. The car should be supported as it would be sitting on all 4 wheels. (this would be a good time to install subframe connectors if you want em) If it were my car, being a northeasterner not only would I throw a party for finding a 40+ year old car with a floor still in it, but I would just patch up those small holes and hammer it back straight rather than go through replacing the whole thing.
 
FomocoReformed said:
That floor's rock solid where I come from!
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I hear you. I grew up in Pennsylvania and welded new floors in just about everything I ever owned back there. But those were old beaters and any old piece of scrap sheet metal would do. Now that I live in California, I guess I've gotten a bit spoiled.

I'd sort of like the repair to be undetectable when the car is up on a lift. That means either following the factory seams or grinding the welds down smooth.

I think I will at least be springing for a pair of rear floor pans. Just wondering how much more work to do the whole floor.
 
Does the tunnel really need replacing? When I did my car we replaced the floor in halves on either side leaving the tunnel in place. Missed the convertible part haha, I would support it under the center just to be on the safe side but you still need it supported on all 4 corners evenly.
 
OK, I tried to chime in here earlier but the damn website crashed while I was submitting my reply. Here is a couple pics of an original unmolested floorpan. As you can see in the pic there is a large crease running under each of the front seats, probably to keep it from oil canning. Also, if you look at the drilled holes for the seats you will see 2 sets on the outboard sides near the rocker lip. The outermost set is for a bench seat car and the inner set is for a bucket seat car, which this was. The outer set is plugged with rubber grommets, and both sets are drilled through the lower gusset. If your car has any additional holes not pictured in my pic I would say that you are looking at an attempt by someone to replace the original seats with some other pair. You can also see that the hump is wrinkled where the pan was stamped. I believe this is from where the pan was a little oversized to compensate for the stamping process.

Looking at your floorpan, I would say that it looks pretty good, and unless there are a lot of rusty pinholes that would necessitate a complete pan change, I would maybe scrape and clean it up really good to see if it needs replacing at all. It's quite an undertaking and unless there is a significant amount of detereoration, I would really think about removing the entire pan before attempting to do so.

Hope this helps in some way, Geof
 

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cosgig said:
Hope this helps in some way, Geof
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Those pictures definitely help. What year are they from?

I can't make out any part of those creases in my floor. It looks like some big huge guy took out my seats and jumped up and down on my floor. There was also some work done with a BFH around some of the non-factory seat holes. I'm thinking that metal is stretched pretty good and wouldn't dolly out very well.

As for seat holes, my inboard holes match yours, as do my outboard holes for the bench seat. But my bucket seat outboard holes are further outboard than yours. I have another set of seats that I will check in the morning to see if they have the same track spacing.

I definitely have pinholes and worse in both rear pans. I also have holes behind the rear pans just ahead of the rise for the back seat. I think my options are to either replace the whole floor, or replace 2/3 of the floor including the area under the front seats plus the rear pans. So the trade off would be a but weld the width of the car versus a lot more spot welds and remounting of the automatic shifter.

I do have a lot of dents in the sub frame and cross member, probably from jacking up the car. If the floor came out it would be a lot easier to fix all those dents.
 
This floorpan from a 66 Dart I believe, which I am using in my 66 Valiant convertible project. I noticed that my inner seat supports are not even close to what yours look like, and I don't know why that is just yet. My guess is maybe something to do with the possibility of being a console equipped car. I am going to be taking my interior out soon while I am working on this floorpan to see how much of the metal I need under the rear seat, if any. It is a great help that it was sent complete and then some, as this way as I can review how it is put together, and more importantly how it comes apart. I'll take a few pics of how it is stitched together and post them here for you to see. It may help when you are removing yours. Right now I am drilling out spot welds working my way from front to back.

As you can see in the included pics, the back roll up pan is a 2 piece unit, with the seam right at the top of the hump. I also included a pic of how it stitches to the side of the inner rocker. If you look at where it is fastened to the floorpan you can see an overlap where it is spot welded together. I was investigating just how this goes together and discovered that the rear pan that goes up and over the wheels is actually spot welded underneath, to the next rib back from where the roll-up pan fastens to the floorpan. This is going to be a difficult area to remove cleanly and save every section but I will have it apart soon and include all those pics also.

I can't wait to get this and the car prepped, and start welding!! I'll keep you posted as I go!! Geof
 

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cosgig said:
As you can see in the included pics, the back roll up pan is a 2 piece unit, with the seam right at the top of the hump. I also included a pic of how it stitches to the side of the inner rocker. If you look at where it is fastened to the floorpan you can see an overlap where it is spot welded together. I was investigating just how this goes together and discovered that the rear pan that goes up and over the wheels is actually spot welded underneath, to the next rib back from where the roll-up pan fastens to the floorpan. This is going to be a difficult area to remove cleanly and save every section but I will have it apart soon and include all those pics also.

I can't wait to get this and the car prepped, and start welding!! I'll keep you posted as I go!! Geof
Click to expand...

The pics are a big help. Always good to learn from somebody elses
mistakes, I mean experience.

The part you are calling the "roll up pan" is rusted through on my car and it's a shame that it's not included in the repro floor pans because I'll bet it's almost aways rusted out if the floor pan is rusted. The repro pans are for a Barracuda/Valiant with a shorter wheelbase.
http://www.autobodyspecialt.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=MP-530L

What are you using to cut your spot welds?

Harbor Freight has a two sided spot weld cutter for $5.
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=spot+weld+cutter
I'm wondering if it's the right diameter for these spot welds and how many you can cut out before it's shot.
 
I've heard nothing but good things about the Harbor freight spotweld cutter, and heard you get a lot of mileage out of them before they go. I have a fleet center near my house and all they had was the $12 one, I think it's a Malco or something like that.

The "roll up pan" to me is the piece under the rear seat that starts at the rear of the floorpan and defines the rise in the rear footwell. It also has the rear seat mounting bracket attached to it. Although my car is pretty solid, and am trying to save every piece in case I need it, but if I don't I would certainly sell that area to you. I have also found on cars where that area is rusted is that the pan that also welds at the next rib back and goes over the rear axle is also rusted around that same radius. The way those 2 join at the rear of the floorpan creates a nice little void in there that can hold a lot of moisture!! I am also trying to save this area just in case, although it is cut at the arch of the frame, where there would be enough metal do do a nice repair on that area. I'll keep this updated as progress continues. Geof
 
cosgig said:
Although my car is pretty solid, and am trying to save every piece in case I need it, but if I don't I would certainly sell that area to you.
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Thanks, I might take you up on that if I don't find a complete floor.


cosgig said:
The way those 2 join at the rear of the floorpan creates a nice little void in there that can hold a lot of moisture!!
Click to expand...

Good tip. I'll check mine tonight.
 
Could you measure the width between your bucket seat holes? I checked another set of seats which I'm pretty sure are also 1965 buckets and they have the same track width as my seats, 17 1/2". It looks to me like your holes are closer together.

Maybe seat tracks changed in 1966.
 
You may be on to something here. I measured both my 66 cars and both have track bolt measurements of 14". The floorpan holes also have that same width. I also measured a set of buckets I have from a 65 Cuda and the track bolt spacing on those is close to 18".

Now, here's the ironic part and maybe a clue to the extra holes. If you measure from the inner holes to the very outside holes, that measures roughly 18". I think that the outer holes are for 65 and earlier cars with bench or bucket, and in 66 you may be right that the track mount spacing may have changed for buckets but the outer holes are still punched and plugged in case it's a bench seat car!!

Just a guess, and glad you brought that up, maybe it's a mystery solved!! "And I would've gotten away with it to if it wern't for those meddling kids"!! Rooby Roooo!! Geof
 
I've located a floor pan and I'm negotiating price. If you don't mind me asking, what did you pay for yours? And did the price include labor to remove?
 
I got the entire floor pan and a partial rear quarter/trunk extension/trunk floor assembly for $500.

The back 6 inches of the passenger rear quarter/trunk extension were cut out and sold to somebody else so I will have some non factory seams in the trunk. I'll have to do those last after I get better with the welder. I hope they got a lot of money from the previous buyer for ruining that quarter and the trunk floor.

Unfortunately the driver's rear quarter/trunk extension was rusted out on that car, but my rust is very small on that side and I think I can just patch it.
 
Don't do any more than you need to do, or over think the process.

It would pay to take a read of this:

Welding basics of basics 101:

http://www.autobodystore.com/new_page_11.shtml

Flange or lap joints:

http://autobodystore.com/forum/showthread.php?20610-flange-or-lap-joints&




For cutting out spot welds:

May I recommend the Dremel 9905 or 9906 carbide cutter for taking out the spot welds, it's the most effective way I've found to do this. Quick n' easy.

7 bucks at Sears.

Mine has done about 65-70 welds, and is going strong. The only downside is it has a tendency to throw metal shards the size of short strand fiberglass. To compensate, I use light oil (WD-40, 3in1, PB Blaster) to keep the shards stuck together, with the side benefit of keeping it cool and lubed. It works very well.

Just be sure to wear: Ear protection, full eyed goggles and/or face mask, jacket and leather gloves, and keep out of the direction it can toss.
 
72ScampTramp said:
do you plan to install this all at once or in sections? Im guessing youve done this before?
Click to expand...

Floor pan all in one piece. Not sure on the trunk/quarter. I might separate it on the factory seams and weld it in one piece at a time.

I patched lots of rust when I was young back in Pennsylvania, but they were all beaters and the welds didn't have to be pretty.

Back in the 80's I welded floor patches into a 66 Mustang but they weren't factory or repro pieces. Just new metal bent up to fit.

While I was in college, my 74 Nova got T-boned. The car was clearly totaled, but I was too broke to buy another car. So I bought the side of another Nova for 75 bucks. Spent Memorial Day weekend at my Dad's welding it in. Replaced the rocker, part of the floor to the factory seam and the rear quarter to the middle of the wheel arch. Came out nice.

Back then I used oxy-acetylene welding. If it warped I just beat back into shape. This time it will be MIG and I've never MIG welded before. I have an old Lincoln stick welder, but I'm sure MIG will be very different.
 
PoisonDart74,

The floor will be all plug welds on the factory seams.

In the trunk/rear quarter I will butt weld the non-factory seams. Where possible I will locate them where I can dolly them and grind them front and back.

Thanks for the links. I will definitely read them.
 
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