I've been working on a few small areas of rust on my 70 project car, and am hoping that my repairs will help someone else that is putting off this type of repair.

First and foremost, The rust that I had is from a leaky rear window, Originally I didn't think the rust was that bad, I thought about just sandblasting it and using fiberglass to reinforce it... Boy am I glad I didn't do that... Anyway Here's the story:

I was really dreading removing the braces that tie the floor pan into the inner quarter panel. These are pretty hefty pieces and are both spot welded and Mig welded to the floor and inner quarter. The removal of these two pieces wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It only took me about an hour and a half to remove this part. While removing the bottom piece, part of the seat pan came with it... (I guess that rust was worse than I thought :) )

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6050063%20(Medium).JPG

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6050064%20(Medium).JPG

I picked up a set of seatpans off of craigslist for pretty cheap. After reading Rob's website www.1969supersport.com (http://www.1969supersport.com) (Lots of really good info) I decided that I would try to re-create the factory floor pan joint between the two pieces of the rocker, and the iner quarter. First if you are going to do it this way I have a tip for you... The inner quarter is spot welded to the rocker, then two pieces of the rocker are also spot welded to the floor pan seperately. So the two layers of sheetmetal that overlap the floor aren't welded all at once, but at two different times, so some of the welds are hidden.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6050065%20(Medium).JPG

Here you can see the rocker and inner quarter seperated from the floor pan.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6050066%20(Medium).JPG

Then I used a combination of a cutoff wheel, dremel, drill, grinder, and hole saw to remove the damaged portion of the seat pan. I tried to keep my cuts as straight as possible, except the corners, I used the hole saw to keep the corners nice and round so the sheetmetal doesn't shrink in the corners (I read that here somewhere)

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6050068%20(Medium).JPG

Here's a shot of the lower portion of the rocker. with the upper rocker and inner quarter

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6050069%20(Medium).JPG

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6050070%20(Medium).JPG

I trimed the part of the seat pan so it fit nicely. Then drilled some new holes into the pan so that I could plug weld it back to the floor brace, and the lower rocker. I also used a flapper wheel on all of the sheetmetal surounding the opening. I wanted to keep the metal on the brace clean so that I would get good penatration and no contamination, so I marked the newly drilled holes on the brace and rocker and stuck some wire nuts over the marks so that I could paint the brace.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6060073%20(Medium).JPG

Here it is all welded up (except the inner rocker, and the floor to inner quarter braces) I also cleaned up the welds so that it is nice and smooth.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6060074%20(Medium).JPG

Tomorrow I'm going to do the other side. and I'll update this post with some other pics also.

Please feel free to ask any questions.

very nice work........its not to hard after you take back the layers and see how it all goes together.keep us up dated

I did the other side today, It went much smoother than the drivers side. Although I did run into a problem. The OEM floor pan design was a little different than the repro. So I had to cut out more than was damaged, but it still went smooth. I also checked from underneath, to make sure the welds penetrated all the way through and they did on both sides. Just need to do the rear floor pans (under the front seats) and that should take care of all of the rust problems. Then onto interior work.

deserttaco, You patch work looks great.... What type of seam sealer are you going to use where the inter wheel well and floor come together? I need to seal mine, looking for what woud work the best...

thanks,
Hans

deserttaco, You patch work looks great.... What type of seam sealer are you going to use where the inter wheel well and floor come together? I need to seal mine, looking for what woud work the best...

thanks,
Hans


Hans, I haven't got that far yet.... I was planning on comming here and asking the same question. I would like something similar to what was there from the factory (Actually held up pretty well over 40 years of being abused) Once I get the rear floor pans finished up I still have to modify them to put in the seats that I wanted to install. It will probalby be next year or so until I get to the seam sealer.

Steve

Hans, I haven't got that far yet.... I was planning on comming here and asking the same question. I would like something similar to what was there from the factory (Actually held up pretty well over 40 years of being abused) Once I get the rear floor pans finished up I still have to modify them to put in the seats that I wanted to install. It will probalby be next year or so until I get to the seam sealer.

Steve

Anyone know what would be the best seam sealer to use around the inter wheel wheel?

Steve, Thanks for the response, and super job and photos of your work...
thanks again,
Hans

Update:

Since both rear seat pans were repaired, and the weather here in the desert has been especially beautiful I did a little bartering with my wife and got some more time this afternoon to work on both rear floorpans (Under the front seats)

Here's what I started with. The Rust wasn't really that bad, and problbly only had a few small pin holes, but I got these floor pans off of a guy here in Phoenix for $75 for both of them, so i repaired them anyway.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6110075%20(Medium).JPG

i used just a 3 inch cut off wheel to remove the bad sheetmetal, it went much quicker than the seat pans as I didn't have to worry about hitting the braces.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6110078%20(Medium).JPG

I traced the cutout piece onto the aftermarket floorpan and again used the cutoff wheel to cut out what I needed leaving about 1/8 inch for final fitting.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6110077%20(Medium).JPG

Here is the new metal sitting in place over the cutout.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6110080%20(Medium).JPG

And Fully welded.

http://norcalttora.com/~steve/photos/Chevelle/body%20work/P6110082%20(Medium).JPG

The drivers side looks pretty much the same. The stamping on the drivers was about 1/4 inch off from the factory floor pans for the ridges that go lengthwise across the car. So I had to do a little hammer and dolly work to get the metal to line up close enough to weld it together.


A Question for you guys that have done this. I ground down the welds on the rear drivers side seat pan, but haven't on the other 3 repair areas... I'd almost rather just leave them as is, so I won't be grinding down any of the metal making weak/thin spots. Anyone have any input on that? I'm not building a show car by any means, just want a nice cruiser. But also don't want any problems down the line.

Steve