It’s been a rough few weeks, health-wise, so not touched the truck of late. Managed to get the driver side inner rear corner installed this week and spent much of this morning removing the old floor pan and firewall, trying to mock up the new panels. Most of the panels are fairly obvious as to their location but the rocker can be installed a fraction too far back/forward and if so impacts the front fender location. klhansen kindly proffered a dimension from the FAM which helps locate the rocker panel, 8.47” from the front of the dash to the leading edge of the rocker.
These first two photos are courtesy of klhansen and show the FAM measurement and how it applies to the rocker.
Next three photos are my current setup. I dropped a vertical laser from the outside of the dash (i.e. in the engine bay) and then measured from the rocker leading edge. I get something more like 8.62, so 0.15” too much. I can probably reduce this further with a nudge or two on the rocker.
I tried to mockup the parking brake brace but the three holes are at a slight angle to the rocker. I will try to work out how to fenagle things to make the holes line up better although if the rocker moves slightly rearward I think it worsens the lining up of the holes with the brake brace.
The plan is to get the rocker and floor pan fixed with ‘self tappers’. I can then modify the cab bracing such that I can reinstall the driver side door to check the gap. If and only if that gap looks fine will I start tacking the rocker/floor. The under floor mount brace is just laid in place loose as of now.
The floor was HORRIBLY out of flat as the near non-existent driver side mount meant the cab was falling into the front left corner. Included the final photo of just how bad the floor was? I used the car lift to raise the body a small amount and the floor flattened out nicely.
Last edited by paul65; 11/26/20228:37 PM.
1951 3100 5-window with a '55 235/floor mounted 3-speed Some of the story in ODSS Most of it in The Shops Area
