Cutting out the floor pans. When I ordered new pans, I had decided I
would only need two full sides, not a complete floor pan. The transmission tunnel was still in really
good shape, but the seat pans were rusted out badly on the front of both. So I also ordered a pair of new seat
pans. I used a cutting wheel on a 4” electric
grinder to do the removal and will be using this tool as a weapon on rust
removal quite a bit in this rebuild. We
keep three grinders in the rotation, one for a cutting wheel, one for a
grinder, and one for a wire brush, so much easier than switching out the devices
of torture.
After cutting out the seat pans, we placed the new floor pans down in the car and
pushed and shoved for best fit and to mark where to cut, giving ourselves
plenty of extra material for any mistakes and trimming later. They will need a little massaging here and
there, but overall not all that bad. There
was only one area behind the gas pedal that will require an extra patch be
welded in that the new pans didn’t cover.
That is right where the cowl was leaking, straight down onto this
area. I cut the periphery with cutting
wheel and then used a grinder to thin the spot-welds on the frame rails and
other areas. After that I just used a
chisel to knock the spot-welds loose.
All the rust in the floor is gone now.
Yeah!!!
Currently (11/3/2012) I still have not welded in the
new pans, having them out has made convenient access to other projects along
the way. They will soon be welded in
however as most of my other sheet metal fab projects are starting to wrap
up.
Here's some of the rust, the fronts are much worse than the rears.
Again, the fronts.
Driver's rear. Bad.
If you look close you can see the fibergass patch job on the driver's side here.
Passenger, front.
Driver's seat pan cut out here, just getting ready to hack the rest out.
Seat pans cut out, making room for test fit to mark for cutting.
Driver's rear.
Passenger rear.
Passenger frame rail.
Driver's side frame rail.
Wider shot after all pans were cut out. You might notice something else going on as well that is a teaser about some of the future work.
No comments:
Post a Comment