How would you repair this?
 

What would be your plan of attack to repair this?
Any suggestions and ideas would be greatly appreciated.

The pics didnt come up in the order I wanted. Best to start from the bottom up.
Thanks

Ideas on repair
 

If I were you, I would order the replacement pans for the bottom parts of the floor, SAVE YOURSELF SOME TIME. As for the rust in the upper parts I think it is all flat sheet metal with no patterns. Get an angle grinder and a cutoff wheel and remove as much as you need and get some 16 gauge sheetmetal and put a bend in it for the part where the floor meets the firewall. If the kich panels are bad this is a good time to cut the bottoms off of them and order replacement kick panels and weld just the bottoms on. after the bottom floors are good and the kick panels are good, then form the front floor/ firewall area and weld it in. With a mig you could have the welding all dome in a couple days. The most time you would spend would be in shaping your sheetmetal.

nice socks! :D


I would also run replacement panels. Who knows what you got hiding on the other side of those panels.

May sound like alot of work buy I agree, in the long run the replacement panels would be a better route.

Spend the 104.00 to get EBFABMAN's dvd set on cab repair. I just received mine and it has already saved me making costly mistakes cutting metal that should not be cut and lots of frustration by showing how to make repro panels that don't fit, to fit. If you don't go that route, the best advice I can give on what to do is cut a little at a time until you get to healthy metal (EBFABMAN's tip) and repair only what is actually bad. The more of the original metal you can keep, the better off the repair will be. Use replacement panels to cut your patch pieces from. They are relatively cheap and are already formed to the right contours for the most part. For places that don't have patches or panels premade, buy 19 gauge metal and form is yourself or cut it from a donor cab if you can find one.

If its still structually sound Id Fiberglass it Just be sure to get rid of all the rust. How i test the strenght of the rockers is put one foot on it and push down if it flexes its weak lol :D

I'm no restoration expert. But it doesn't look that bad to me. If you are plannin on investing a lot of time/money into the truck by all means cut it out and patch it up right and proper. If you just wanna drive it, I'd Por-15 it and go.

Nixon, who is EDFABMAN, and where can you get the tapes you're talking about? I'm like chickenwing, this floor ain't bad. If ya'll want to see bad, I'll try to take some pics of the floor in my truck! :eek:

If you want to do it right cut out all the rusted sheetmetal and replace it with patch pannel's it will last longer and you will not have to do it agian....

EBFABMAN is a major contributor on this message board. Really knows his stuff. Look for threads he has written on and you will find a ton of good info. Also go to www.ebfabman.com . Has lots of stills taken from the dvds to get an idea of what he talks about. And has an address to send the money to. I bought them, as have other board members. All A++++ revues. Quick delivery time and very honest. The DVDs are filmed and produced by him. Low budget. Good, clear live action. The background music is a little cheesey but he show every step and you can literally take a portable DVD player and work on your truck step by step. I am saving money for panels and patches and plan on doing some of the work over the winter. He basically does what SKOKIEs truck needs from start to finish on the DVDs. There are some supports that you DON'T want to cut when you repair the floor pan and this info was invaluable. I would have hacked right through the whole thing. Well worth the $$$$. Check out the thread I started in Paint and Body entitled Patch Panel ? for EBFABMAN.

Hope this helps. I can't say enough about the DVDs.

Repair it? Why? You can't even see the highway going by underneath yet. When you're losing stuff through the whole, then we'll talk about rust repair.HA!

Hey! STFU!

I lost a nice norelco electric razor that was sitting on the LH side of the dash in my '72, well it went flying when, late for work, I mashed the gas on my modified fuel injected gasser, the razor went flying off the dash and out the hole in the rocker, onto the freeway at about 70 and under the tire. And that was the last of it. Damnit!

Yep I think that maybe I will be getting EBFABMANs dvds here on payday. The shops around here in san jose want from 750-1200 just to do that side. I got some scrap metal that I can practice on once I buy a welder. And that brings up something else. What would be a good welding exercise to practice? Tac welding a piece to another piece? Any suggestions. It's obvious I have no clue on how to weld. :) LOL

Hey, thats a clean looking floor! I sat in my 76 and the bench fell through the floor!

That is damn funny, man! That reminds me... I need to stuff new rags down in the cab corners. :rolleyes:

I've got your old rags. I picked them up on the way to Northern. :rolleyes:
I think I will have to put that DVD set on my X-mas wish list. looking like the boys will get nothing this year after my list is fulfilled. :eek:

Knock it off!! You guys are killing me! :D I'm sitting here in the office reading these post, and I can't help it, I just bust out laughing. Now the boss knows I'm slipping around on the puter doing stuff I ain't suppose to. ;)

This looks pretty good compared to some I've done. Bring it to me and write me a check. I'll fix it.

Stryker67
Ir a long drive to Georgia from California. :)

I saw the same thing this past weekend on my '80!! I could see more road though.

I cleaned off the rust. Ground the edges. Painted the grinds and applied "ancillary fabric adhesive strips" (duct tape). I'll be checking the boneyards and metal shops for appropriate repair materials.

Later,

- Dave

"Honey, whens Overhaulin' gonna steal my truck????"

Wedgemon, hate to dissapoint but most of the stuff in the boneyards is as bad or worse than what we are driving around. Have you checked the price of repair panels. They are cheap. Save yourself some time and purchase fresh metal.

For you guys that are fans of fiberglass and bondo, let me say that I just bought a truck that has this kind of work done to it and underneath it all its still rusting away. You may be inclined to say it wasn't prepped correctly and that may be true, but if you go with new metal you can't go wrong and it fixes the problem permanently.

Hey skokie, I'd have to agree with you. At least it would be in a Chevy! :metal: It's even longer if your driving a FORD! :crazy: