I have my car and a donor car with perfect floorpan. do i cut the whole floor out including the braces and weld/braze the good one in or do i have to cut around the braces. and would brazing the floor in if i leave a lip of the old metal in be sturdy?

anyone?

Dont braze the floor, it doesnt have the strength only use a mig welder. Does your car need the whole floor replaced or just part of it?

About the only way to replace the whole thing is too repalce it at the factory seems. You would just about to need to replace the rockers along with the new floor as the floor wont just slip inside. You would need to jack up the car from the frame as you cant remove the braces without doing this. If I was doing to do this as others might have a different way, find the spot welds that hold the rockers to the rest of the car and remove. Some along the cowl area, around the wheel wells and in the inside on that brace that goes from the quarter panel to the floor. The floor is seemed in two spots one in the front about half way up the toe board and the other is right behind the back seat where the piece of metal goes down from the package tray to the floor. Also remove the spot welds in those areas.

For the best job always try to repace panels at the factory seem. Now before you start hacking on the car adjust the doors to where you want them. Also weld up some bracing that goes from the door hinge area to the quarter brace on the inside. Make it that the door can still shut and open up. Without bracing the car will flex and i would leave the doors on just so you know when you are in alignment.

You might be able to slip the floor inside thus easier, but I dont think it will.

pretty sure most of the floorpan needed replacement. the rockers are the part right under the door? i am not entirely sure but i think they are ok. would it be better if i got replacement panels from NPD?

Yes the rockers are the part under the door. The parts from NPD is good stuff thats who I bought my floor pans from. They fit great. Any aftermarket panel will need minor adjustment to fit properly. But nothing fits like an original piece, so if you have a good floor use that.

Floor pan replacement is fairly easy to do but you can really miss things up in a hurry if you dont know what to do. The best advice I will give you is seek out the help from a friend that does body work or pay a body shop to do this for you.

I thought of maybe an easier way to repalce your floor and still use that original floor pan. If your floor is bad the braces underneth will likely to be bad as well, repalce them. Now this might be easir to do but take more time to complete. First remove the braces from the floor by drilling out the spot welds and along the inner rocker. Remove one at a time. Then remove the bad brace on the floor that you are replacing, by removing the spot welds. Then fit the new brace up to the old floor, checking alginment as you go. Then tack weld the new brace to the old floor only to hold the brace in shape. Then remove the next brace and repeat. Once you get the braces in, you can start to install the new floor. You want to install it at the factory seems, but in order to fit it inside cut down the middle of the floor thus leaving you two pieces that you can fit into the car, just like what you would get from NPD.

Install one side at a time, fitting the new side to the braces that you just installed and to the old half of the floor. Once that fits tack weld that in piece. Remove the last half of the floor and install the new half fitting it to the braces and the other half of the floor. You want to replace one piece at a time to keep the original alignment of the parts.

Once everything fits, finsih welding the spot welds and weld the seems shut and the new seem you created by cutting it down the middle.

How much would it cost to have a body shop do this?

It will be expensive.. to replace the braces and floor pan I would suspect would run you at minimum 1500-2000 there would be A LOT of work involved in doing that, Just replacing floorpans (just bad areas in front) rockers and wheelhouses has taken me quite a while I would estimate 3-4 days labor to do your job by a professional, if they don't stretch it out further. at 40 bucks an hour for 24 hours is 960 bucks. 4 days at 40 bucks an hour turns out too be 1280 and 40 an hour is LOW per hour rate. it is TOUGH work.. and if you don't know what your doing, or have someone help you, you could make matters worse than you started with.. Good Luck whichever way you go!

------------------
X-Ray View of my Chevelle :D (http://www.normieschevelle.com/sideview.jpg)
Getting Closer (http://www.normieschevelle.com/passfull.jpg)

When I did the floor replacement on mine I used repro parts, rplaced both braces and the floor from the cowl back to the rear seat. It took about two days solid to complete the replacemet. I do body work for a living and have done a few floor replacements before, so about two days worth of work is what it will take roughy. Now if you have them use that old floor as an replacement my guess that it would that roughy a day to cut it up and get it ready to go into the car. So a good three days work at a shop is a good guess. My shop charges 45 bucks a hour some others in the area are around 40 and one is 55.

Normie is right it is rough work to do, and if you dont have the knoledge to do it yourself please dont do it as you will really screw up the car before you know what happened. And trying to fix it is sometimes impossible. Like I said before find someone to help you or pay the fine at a shop, but if you start hacking and cutting I can gurantee you that car will bend,flex and twist every way possible and once that happens no shop will take in the car to fix it. Not trying to sound like a jerk just saying what is likely to happen...good luck...Eric

Had some repair work to do on my 70 floor boards. I pulled the large areas from a donor car and fabricated the small patches using 18GA sheet metal. I butt welded all of the joints and it turned out very well. The key for me was the gauge of the wire. I originally used .035 diameter wire and was blowing holes in the pans right and left. Switched to .024 and it was a piece of cake.
I would be glad to offer more info as well as some photos.
E-mail me at dansolomon@msn.com if I can help.

Dan Solomon
70 Chevelle

i will try to get some pictures of my floorpan. the toeboard and area right in front of the rear seat are bad. if i purchased the replacement floorpan from npd, they come in halves, could i just not cut out what i have replacement for and weld in the new? the body isnt on a jack or anything, it is on the ground out back.

[This message has been edited by scwiliamson-70ss (edited 11-27-2001).]

I am sorry from before I said that I bought my floor from NPD, but instead got it from the Paddock. I bought the kit that they have part number FPK1 it cost around 500 bucks. It included the rear seat area toe board ext and floor halves. My floors included a full tranny tunnel. The toe board ext are pretty much a waste.

If the floors are bad the braces will be bad too so replace them. There is no getting around that the car will need to be jacked up from the frame to replace the floor.

if i got the floorpan halves, cut out and welded them in, replaced the braces. and did a good job on it. would the body still twist and warp or whatever? and what company sells the best replacement floorpan/rocker panels? it just seems almost like that i could replace the floor with a little imagination and hard work without having to send it to a body shop out of town, we have none that are in town. i am pretty sure i am going to do it myself, does anyone have any suggestions about what to watch out for in the process? i have about 2-3 weeks before i will start rebuilding the body of the car. on the engine now. thanks for all the advice and help.

it would be easier to buy panels than try to use the donors.

what is the best quality/low price manufacturer?

NPD sells panels that are made in USA,crisp stampings and a good price.

If your donor has good floors in it what does the rest of the shell look like. Maybe it would easier to swap shells. A buddy of mine, who is a retired body man, and I replaced 3/4 of my floors and it took at least 20 hours with me helping.

check out the goodmark/super chevy project chevelle coverage to get an idea of what kind of work your talking about. This is hard exacting work.