I am taking the floor pans out of my '69SS and it
is not going good. I drilled the spot welds along
the two center braces and finally got that done but the sides rails are my problem. The pans go under the rocker edges and look like they are spot welded and every 3 or 4 inches they are fused together. I don't have a clue how to get the pans out without tearing up the rockers. The paint on the car is great so I'm trying to keep from replacing the rockers and painting.
Thanks for your help.
Jim

If the side rails are intact you can trim your pans instead of cutting or bending too much metal. I just finished the floors in a 66 & cut up to the just before the sill plate, trimmed an inch & 1/2 of the edge of the panel & slightly overlapped (1/2 inch). If your within two inch's of the plate only the real enthusiast could even notice. If your real concerned you can butt weld at the joint. Many if not most will only remove the metal that is bad or going bad and then cut the pans to fit.

Jim,
I don't think your replacement pans go to the rocker spot welds. Be careful what you cut out. Take the new pan and set it in for placement before cutting. Maybe I am wrong or we are not talking about same floor pans. Take it slow so you do not make more work for your self. Pic's would help.
Nelson

I drilled the spot welds out at the rockers on mine when I replaced the rear seat pan. I peeled about two layers of sheetmetal back to remove the old portion of the pan. The front pans don't require as much surgery, but you'll still need to drill those spot welds out.

This is what I'm talking about.

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/Randy_Mosier/Dcp_0855.jpg

Randy,
Thanks for the comments and photo. There are three
pieces of sheetmetal with the floor pans being in
the middle. I have drilled the spot welds and they are also fused/welded to the lower piece of metal.
I could sent you a photo but I don't know how to
attach. Is there an easy way to break this metal apart?
Thanks,
Jim

You'll find that the sheetmetal sometimes has been spotwelded in layers. That means that when you drill the welds out of one layer and peel it back, it exposes more spot welds that were hidden beneath the top layer. I had to drill more than once when I did the rear seat floor.

As for breaking it apart once all the spot welds are drilled out, a stiff blade putty knife works well, as does a gasket scraper. When you drill these welds, sometimes you don't get it all and there's still a small portion of metal that's fused together around the edge of the hole you drilled.