soon i will be replacing the front and middle floor braces on my 67 chevelle 4 door sedan. i will patch the floors with sheet metal because theyre not that bad. what is the best way to replace these braces?? will i need to remove the fenders and hood to do this?? i wil also drop the exhaust, and gas tank. because i need to replace the trunk floor and trunk floor body mounts.. keep in mind i have no garage and will be working outside in the cold.. whats the best way to do all this????? :confused:

Trying to do this with the car on the frame is next to impossible. ......unless you leave the ends of the old supports in there and weld in the new pieces to the old ends. I HIGHLY advise against this!

I found that when I removed the old ends where they attach to the rockers that there was holes ate through from rust. I found this to be true on all 4 ends of the two support pieces. You couldn't see it from the outside. Only a matter of time before big trouble. I ended up cutting out the rust and welding in new pieces in the rocker.

Most people will tell you that you shouldn't take the body off the frame for alignment reasons. Maybe so, but you just try to do a support brace replacement without doing just that! So some guys raise one side at a time.

You will likely have fun with some of the bolts and nuts on the body mounts. Some on mine rusted so bad the nuts turned instead of staying in place for the bolt to come out. Some bolts and nuts were rusted together.

You will need to find and drill out all the spot welds between the pan and the support. I have trouble believing that the support would be bad and the pan would be good. Better look very close at the pan.

This is NOT a fun job! If you have to work outside in the cold...I'd say wait until next spring or farm this job out to a body shop.

I HATE RUST !!! Been there, done that, have the bad attitude to show for it!
Steve