questions

[Sacramento70]

i bought new floor pans for my 70 blazer and was wondering if i should weld them on top of lips left by the old floor pan or flush weld them and does the rolled metal that meets the floor pan and firewall critical. any help is appreciated. and o a side note my a pillars are completely trashed and do i need new exact fits or will a few pieces of metal do the trick

[71jimmy]

first off, everything in the Blazer is critical. If your going to remove the top and expect to get it back on with minimal leakage etc, it needs to be done close to the way the factory did it. It's up to you were you weld, you'll need to live with it. I only had to replace a partial section of floor. I cut about 1 inch below were it meets the firewall and butt welded. As far as the A pillar, again critical, spend the extra few bucks and buy the replacement for the bottom of the A pillars. There are several threads that have plenty of pics of this work, it's worth spending the time to find them and read them.

Good Luck!

[vtblazer]

do your homework.

It's all repairable, have fun.

Post up a thread with pic's & description's of your trouble spots, we'll help were we can.

...and welcome to the board, enjoy the ride.

[vtblazer]

Thought I'd answer your pm here in the thread just in case others might have the same questions.

I use a Miller mig welder, 75/25 mixed gas & .025 wire.

No, I don't believe you loose any strength buy butt welding, it's the correct way to do it IMO.
By doing an over lap joint, you invite moisture to settle in.

As for shaping the metal to roll up and meet the fire wall, use what the patch offers and after that, having a set of body hammers help.

Here's the basic breakdown, hope the pics help.

Started here:



Cut out the bad:



Floor support install:



Used a truck inner rocker patch panel and cut it down, they offer more metal to work with including the lower 'a' pillar area:




Floor patch panel over lay:

[vtblazer]

Cut - Fit & Weld in the patch:




Have fun.

[71jimmy]

Vt, excellent pics

Question: How did you weld the underside of the floor support? With the torsion box still on, it doesn't give much room to weld from under the floor support.

I went and removed the entire old floor support, kind of a pain to get everything re-aligned, thinking about what you did on my dr. side instead if I can figure out how to weld the underside of the support like that.

Thanks