Started pulling apart the patches the PO put in place to repair my driver's side floorboards. The truck was in a minor wreck many years ago that damaged the driver's side and the repair was pretty cheesy. The floorboard patch was just a couple of pieces of sheet metal glued in place with silicone. What I hadn't realized prior to taking off the rocker covers is that the damage was more extensive that I'd realized. They made their own rocker panel and welded it in where the lower door seal goes. This was covered with Bondo. The kicker is that I'm planning to cut the fenders off and weld in 2x6 tube and am on a budget for this. I've already got the floor pan and lower firewall panels, and may need new inner and outer rockers, kick panel and possibly door post and inner fender. This would add $300 plus shipping to the cost. The inner fender had the usual hole above the wheel well, but it has been repaired with mesh and Bondo. Based on the pics below, what of these can reasonably be patched instead of replaced? How tough is it to replace those panels? Also, the floor pan support is bent about 20 degrees down just outside of the body mount. I'm hoping to use a floor jack with a piece of wood to bend it back into shape, but am not sure if that will work. Thoughts?

Justin,

You will need to clean those areas up and trim back to good metal to know if you can weld in some small patches or if you need to replace those panels entirely.

On our door posts Drew fabricated some uber overkill outer posts that he welded in after cutting out the rotten metal. He made them out of 3/16 steel plate that he cut to shape and welded a return so they are an angle. Then he fully welded.them in. I must say I was rather impressed by the idea and result. We then treated the whole area with rust preventitive and rattle can undercoat.

Now he is fabricating sliders with braces that will tie into the roll cage.

I will post some pictures on our build thread as we progress. The door posts are already there.

I had/have the same bend in the floor support under the front floor boards. I put in floors many years before I started in auto body. I used a floor jack, and sledge hammer (jack up outside the body mount & pound on the kink)to straighten the supports as much as possible, and welded small angle stock into the channels to reinforce them after they were straighter. I was not successful in getting them completely straight. If you could chain the truck down you'll be more likely to get the channels straight, so the energy is used to move the channel, not lift the truck (if that makes sense). We have floor pots that we chain cars to the floor of our shop with. I'm not sure how to fake them, I'll ask around work today.

Thanks guys. I'll tear into it a little more and post up some pics of what I find. Gunni, do you have any idea what it would cost if I took the truck to a body shop to have the support straightened?

If you could find a friendly shop, it shouldn't cost much at all. We'd probably do it for a case of beer or something, if you find a shop or guy who wouldn't mind doing it off the books. If you just ask them to do a quickie and get it eyeball straight, I'd guess they should only charge you an hour or so to chain it up and straighten it. Unless you want them to get out the measuring system & check everything, that would add some time.

I didn't come up with any great substitutes to replace the floor pots. If you try it yourself & the jack & sledge hammer doesn't work, you could use a torch to get the channel red hot, then it would move easily.

Good luck.

Got it a litte more torn apart. I've definitely got damage to the inner and outer rockers, floorboards, door post, kick panel and inner fender/core support. At this point I'm planning on replacing the floor pans, patching the inner fender and kick panel, and installing a new inner and outer rocker. It bums me out to install new sheetmetal, then cut it up to install sliders, but I'd like to get rid of the lousy bondo/weld job and know it is done right. The good news is that the area on the inner fender over the wheelwell that I thought was bondo is actually a steel patch. I'm not particularly inclined to replace it. The semi-bad news is that I discovered that the support that runs across the body under the floorboards has been cut out on the top and driver's side of the transmission tunnel. I'm assuing it was done as part of the NP435 install. My questions:

1. What order should I attack this in? I'm concerned about the body sagging and getting everything back into alignment, because it isn't now. I've never done bodywork, but am thinking it makes sense to replace the floor pans and inner rockers since they're attached to the straightest metal, then build out from there using the new sheet metal as a guide to line everything up.

2. Do I need to replace the missing underbody brace? I can do it, but it will be a massive pain in the butt and I don't know how much it really matters. I'm also not sure that I'll be able to keep it and get rid of my body lift like I want to.

3. Based on the pics, is the door post salvageable? I really don't want to replace the entire thing, as I'm not confident enough in my bodywork skills to take on cutting up the parts where the door post intersects the cowl. Can I just cut it off partway down and install a new lower half?

4. Anything else I'm missing?

5. Anyone feel like taking a look at this in person and offering some opinions? I can do the work, I just really don't want it to be a hack job. When I hand this down to my son someday, I don't want him cursing the previous owner.

Wish I could stop by and lend a hand.

It sounds like it would be best to replace the floors first. Always try to cut back to good/straight metal & start there.

Also when reinstalling doors & fenders, start by lining up the door with the quarter & move forward. It is way easier to make a fender line up with a door, than the other way. You'll save yourself some time redoing stuff. Get the door perfect, then install the striker, you don't want the striker putting stress on the door to pull it up or down into place. It will eventually rip the door latch out of the door. My truck was badly aligned by the PO after going to the "roof races", my latches ripped through the screw holes from the stress. I've made the doors open & close nicely, but they don't match the fenders at all.

If you are afraid of things sagging, you can weld in temp braces to keep things square. I cut a big section of my body channel away to install my NP435 over 10 years ago, and haven't seen any movement, despite my swiss cheese door pillars, sagging floor brace, and completely missing inner rockers. I'd bet the door pillars can be patched, use a good heavy gauge sheetmetal. You can build a sleeve to bridge under the splice, to add extra strenght, and you'll end up with a stronger result than replacing the whole thing. We use sleeves when we splice a quarter, usually the splice will be along the rear window sail panel & along the bottom 1/2 of the door opening. Slide the sleeve up under the good pillar section & spot weld it in. Then install the new patch panel & spot weld it to the sleeve also. Then you can stitch weld the seam.

Good luck.

Chad

Awesome, thanks for the info/advice. I wish you could stop by too! I may try to jack up that side of the body a little and weld in braces. I'll have to do some fiddling to see if I can get things squared up a little before I start cutting out steel. I'm hoping to clear up my existing door alignment issues as part of the process.

If you leave the floor as is.........you can use your foot to apply braking pressure directly to the tire should the brakes fail

Growing up in Ohio, a good view of the pavement, through the floors, was available from many of my friend's cars, in high school.

One friend who had a 69 Cutlass Supreme, figured we could always "Flintstone" it to a stop if his brakes failed.