Driver’s Floor Demo and Prep

While it seems like we’ve been here before, two sides of the same car can present different damage, challenges, and choices for how to repair. By and large, the driver’s side of this car is not as corroded as the passenger side. Among other things, the driver’s floor pan was firmly attached to the tunnel. Additionally, the A post structure was not rotted through.

Having cut my teeth on the passenger side, I was able to get right to work demo-ing the driver’s floor. I cut the floor out with the sawzall and grinder cut off wheel. For my 1/2″ x 18″ belt sander, I found some great 40 grit zirconia sanding belts. These felt like a cheat code versus the aluminum oxide belts I have used so far. The belts chew straight through spot welds, have a long life, and I’ve yet to snap one: 36 pack of 40 grit Zirconia belts.

With the floor out, I proceeded to cut away the inner and outer sills. It took a bit more finesse on this side as the structure was more whole. Where needed, I ground away spot welds and separated this metal from structure that needed to be kept.

With these items out of the way, there are two major repairs to be taken care of — much like the passenger side. The footwell end panel was corroded and the chassis leg had seen better days. Both repairs closely mirror the work done on the passenger side. For the footwell end panel, the worst of the metal was cut away and a new piece was shaped and welded into place. For the chassis leg, the old chassis leg was measured, cut off, and a new one was trimmed and welded into place.

One more item to go in before the floor was the new rear jack point. I had neglected to take a picture of on the passenger side, so we’ll address it here. The rear jack point fits into the roughly triangular-shaped rear bulkhead. This component is extremely strong as it wedges into the triangle shape and is welded on its fore, aft, bottom (to the floor pan), and outer side (to the inner sill). This pipe shape sticks through the inner sill and is available through the outer sill to interface with the factory jack.