The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop floor pans

Hi All,
I have a 51, 3600 with rusted floor pans. I will be replacing the drivers floor pan, in front of the seat to the firewall. I notice that the seat frame is joined to the entire floor with a flange. The lip of the seat frame looks to be 1/2" and is attaced to the floor outside the frame. When the front section of the floor is cut away, I assume the seat frame flange remains. Now the question, how is the replacement pan piece attached at this point. Does it go on top of the seat frame flange, underneath, or what?
Thanks!
Rick

Rick most of the pans go right up to within about an inch of the seat frame. It can be welded or bolted there depending on what you want. If you get a full floor you replace everything. I welded mine everywhere but there. I used some small 1/4" bolts and a good seam sealer to finish that area. I used a tig and could not get in there to make a good weld you may be able to with a MIG. You can see in my album how I did it.

Brad A
the link is broken, says you have not uploaded anything to look at.

Brad B
Texas

I tried it and it seems to be working now.

I found several images under the "tags" tab. There are no images under the "albums" tab.(at least that I can see)

The floor pan install starts right about HERE.(over 130 pics available in this album)

I think the reason it doesn't show on the album tab is that the album has no title. I had to dig around a little to find it.

Holy Cow Brad, that is a lot of good welding! My truck is in about the same shape and needs about the same repair. I have access to the necessary equipment to make my own pan pieces, so I will, but I found it interesting to see where you put sections and how you worked them in. It is amazing how much a set of pictures can make something clear in your mind. As I said before, I admire your tig work. Anyone can weld thick flat thick stuff but this gage sheet metal, in a corner, standing on your head, is a real job. Especially if you don't want to go blind, burned, or choked! Thanks for sharing, it taught me quite a bit.
Rick

I just today finished fitting my passenger side floorboard and found it simpler to just put the patch panel over the seat riser. If you cut the back of the floorboard to cover only half the seat riser you can run a bead there. I'll probably run a couple 1/2 beads there and do a continuous bead underneath once get the whole mess tacked together and off the frame.

In case you're interested, HERE'S the way I'm approaching mine which is in just about as bad a condition as you will find. If I lived out west I would have just junked this rusty box and bought a good cab... things here get pretty rusty.

Hi Woody,
What a bunch of work! Thanks for the pictures, they also help me see what fits where. You sure have your hands full making all that come together. Did you brace the cab in any way before you removed so much sheet metal, I mean welding in some X bracing to be removed afterwards? Is it staying straight for you?
Rick

Rick,

No bracing. As long as you have a solid floor pan or sill they provide all the bracng you need. The only thing that's going to move in this situation is the distance between the bottoms on the striker and hinge pillars.

Think of the door opening as a ring of steel. Unless you are in a collision or other destructive event that circle will never change, BUT if you cut a piece out of the circle you can visualize how that gap could open and close. In the case of these trucks, the sill and floor pan are the primary supports for this dimensional stability. Remove one and you're okay. Remove both and you're in trouble unless you brace. I learned this many years ago when we cut the roof off a PINTO and that is something that has never changed... and why convertibles have such heavy frames.

In my case I did one at a time and my door fits and latches perfectly... indicating that my door opening is what it should be.

Hey 54TOW - your pix look good of your floor and side cowl repairs. But I got a question- What's with that drag link with the heim ends? Is that a temporary set up?

Those pictures are Brad Allen's. I just dug around his photo site until I found where the pics were, and posted a link to that page.

Thanks Woody, I see what you mean by a ring. I don't need to work on the sill or any of the metal that makes up the door frame, so I will skip the bracing. Which is good, I would hate to crawl around it. The pictures of the Pinto were great! A ton of work but I love the concept. You don't happen to have the phone number of the lady in the first picture do you?!! I know, she might be a little older now.
Rick

Very cool pics. My grandpaw and I am working on one that needs similar patches. We are trying to figure out what parts we need. The bottom corner of the firewall as well as the side cowl panels and front of the floor are rotted out. We also have a collapsed floor support. So we will need to figure out how to jack up the cab.

Did you cut out part of the firewall when you put in the floor panels? It looks like you cut the new floor panel also? Is this necessary? Thanks

vettegc, if you're talking to me you can follow my process through HERE. There are also picture there of how I jacked the front of my cab up.

There are a couple options for replacing your floors and toeboard. I chose to do mine in halves because I had no idea of what to expect and I have what appears to be a misaligned cab based on where the steering column comes through the toeboard. Depending on how much rot you have will determine what parts you need and depending on your level of expertise will determine how you go about repairing everything.

If I had a well equipped shop, a helper and a bigger budget I would have replaced my entire floor and seat riser as well as my entire toeboard.

If you post pictures it would be helpful.

I am in the process of installing some Bitchin products floorboards. they came with a 3 inch rectangular tubing that you weld to the sills and it provides support for the new seam and also somthing to weld to

I think you meant my drag link 54TOW helped alert me to a problem with my album. It is the drag link I intend to use, fully adjustable and only cost me $50.00. The parts are from Speedway and it takes some modification to the steering arms to make it work. This is every bit as strong as the original and much easier to center the steering, the parts are sold as suspension pieces by speedway.

I also approached mine first DS then PS completing all work on a side before moving to the next. If you cut and weld as you go you should have no effect on the cab. One thing to keep in mind when you replace the outer cowls is to mount the door to check the clearances you don't want to big or too small a gap. You will find that the panels are not the same as your floors there are differences. I cut the new panels to account for things like missing brackets around the pedals the originals are better the small little hump in the center that did not appear on repros. I cut where the originals were in decent shape and did not remove more then necessary. You will note that some panels go to the break line in the floor and others have that line. I would suggest buying the full panel with the break and upper section in it. That area around the break would make it very difficult to weld since it is usually very thin and rotten there. Take your time measure, measure twice, and have fun I really enjoyed this part of the restoration as I sought to make it better than new.