Projects 54 chevy floor sills floor braces and floor pans help??

Hey ive got a 54 chevy and im cutting it apart to try and fix the floor braces sillls and floors this is my first project and am looking for some helpful hints and tips do's and donts or advice from someone who has already been through this. so heres where shes at i got both front floors cut out and the left floor brace out as it was rotted.
EMS just released repro front floor braces so im gonna get a set of those.
but before those go in im gonna need to clean up the corners of the doors as they are rotted a bunch too. im also gonna have to replace the sills so i have something for my braces to attach to, i was thinking just getting some sheet metal and making my own. the thing is how to get them in, would doing it in sections be a workable way so i dont have to lift the body off. this is my first big project so i appreciate anything you got.

heres some pics


FLOORS NOW


LEFT SIDE ( floor brace cut out already )


RIGHT SIDE



RIGHT SIDE SILL

 

Looks too far gone to save, I will bring a trailer and get it out of your garage! You can do it with the body on. i think you are on the right track, just get some steel and make your own small patches for the door area and floors. As far as the rockers go, looks like you might be better off buying a replacement? Hard to tell from the pics? tackle it one piece at a time. Good luck bro!

 

this car is not to far gone,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to: ballom you are think correctly that you nedd to do this in a certian procedure and order this outs you way ahead of others in your thinking. trying to pacth it together with scraps of old junk will get you a car that looks like it was patched with old junk.

1st: rocker, inner rocker, floor brace, toe board maybe, DO NOT CUT OUT ANY MORE STUFF TILL YOU GET THE REPLACEMENT PANELS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LAST: front floors

the tech will be in the office a bit on friday, but most of monday he should be : ask for the tech guy and leave a number if he is out (on friday) or pm me your number

there is to much info on this job to make a post:

you can remove the interior, keep the headliner in but hang a trap ( old carpet best) to keep it from sparks

the ems guy

 

ok sounds good ill give him a call and see what he has to say. i was just wondering does the inner rocker attatch to the outer rocker and the floor or is there a kind of intermediate piece that everything attatches to? in a couple of the pics below it looks like the inner rocker attaches to the floor?

 

yes inner rocker attaches the the backside of the rocker and the floor at the top

 

well, for your first big project you a got one to learn on the hard way-boy. just start wire wheeling rust chippin away any under coating, etc. in every area that has rust-if you can see so much already likely lots more. right about not doing any more cutting until you decide what to buy after market-may have to cut out some sections from a wreck to replace damaged areas rather than rebuild some areas-take a plastic coated magnet to body and try to figure out how much bondo is covering rust-take your time and you will get it done and will able to improve your welding/fabricating skills.

 

I would say (and this is exactly how I'm approaching a floor area that looks VERY similar to yours) to, before you do anything more- Check the alignment of your doors very closely. Get them all aligned perfectly, then brace the***** out of the car before you cut anything more, or even think about welding anything.

That might be a bit of overkill, because since your car (as well as my '51) is a post car, not a hardtop. The roof being tied to the B pillar makes the body inherently stronger, and less likely to move around or go swaybacked, but I'm not taking any chances.

I'm going to make my own floors, braces and rockers inner and outer- but mostly because I want to make some changes from the original shape of everything. If you're buying out panels, I've looked very closely at the EMS panels, and they look really good to me. I'm sure I'll be using them for the quarters when I get to that point

 

I've got the EMS sheetmetal for the floors of my '51, and I'll say so far the fit and finish is pretty damn good. I'm about to start replacing the middle brace and full floors in mine.