Yo. Thanks for your interest. The intent here is to replace body (to frame) mounts, floors, rockers, trunk floor, and all sheet metal I can get panels for for the bottom half of this pig. She's been waiting patiently for ten years for this treatment. Shit body laying on a fairly well done original chassis with mods like lowered front end, dual master behind original, Nova rear end, new rear spring kit, saginaw 4 spd and the frame mods to accompany it....it's all pretty sick. My thought is to reinforce with square tubing (red in photos), cut out floor (yellow), and replace first: body to frame mounts (by bolting them to the frame and building round them), second, floors and rockers....then move on to the trunk, and outside panels. Left to Right square tubing was welded in 10 years ago when we moved the shit body onto the fancy rebuilt chassis...square tubing from cowl to door pillar is new and will connect as shown in red in photos. I'm writing to show off my shit box, but also to hear what others who've done it before might have to say, based on a similar amount of rot and ambition. I got this thing running several years ago, unsafe as it may have been, and now it's time for body.
I am not an expert, my experience is limited to replacing the floors in my 50 pickup. It looks like you have bracing across the door opening and across the car fairly high, as well as diagonals to the trans hump. My only concerns would be spreading at the bottom of the cowl and any body supports being exposed and thus not supporting the car while the metal is replaced. I did mine in basically two pieces and the only major problem was self inflicted, I bought cheap floors off e-bay and they looked like a middle school metal shop project. I made them work but would not do so again.
Go to EMS for the metal parts. You won't be disappointed. They are made to replicate the original stampings and will be an easy replacement for what you need. No need to make your own.
I did a thread about this a couple of years ago. Because we channeled our 51 Fleetline, we removed all of the floor and built it "hot rod " style floor including body mounts. Take a couple of minutes to see if there is any information you might be able to use https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-you-have-no-idea-what-you-are-doing.1131278/
I did that on my '54 Ford, almost exactly the same spots as you've yellowed in your pics. Really no need to reinforce with square tubing. If you were cutting out the whole floor....yeah, but not if you're just installing patch panels. EMS has great products but they're pricey. Go to the local steel supply house and inquire about 18ga remanents. I spent $80 on sheet metal, did tons of patch panels and still have 1/3 of it left over! One EMS rocker panel is $160! A cheap HF bead roller and brake is all you'll need. Check out my build thread and you can see how I went about it.... https://www.hotrodders.com/threads/1954-ford-customline-build-thread.545181/
Update since last post, in case any 49 to 54 folks are interested... I've gained back some of the confidence I had last time I worked on this pig, about 10 years ago... - Parts of floor removed for perspective, bracing added to keep everything straightish. - Had a local sheet metal shop make me a pair of inner rocker panels: 72" long x 4 1/2 tall with a 3/4 bend, CRS, 18ga. - Finally said F it, and cut the rocker off...it's possible I was inebriated....but sometimes you just gotta say ...you know what comes next.... - In the same photo, I have also tacked three pieces of sq tubing to the frame to have something to attach the new inner rocker to while I work out the body to frame mounts, which will be made from sq tubing as well...EMS is going to make a pretty penny off me soon, but for now, I'm going to try to fab stuff on my own. - Lastly, today, I tacked a piece of rebar to the frame to make sure I knew where the fender mounting hole is supposed to be, and cut the remainder of the inner rocker panel out, as well as some more floor...I also hear one of the original bracing welds (pillar to pillar) crack while I was climbing my fat ass thru the car, so it would be wise to revisit that structure from 10 years ago so my car doesn't cave in. Plan now is to get the inner rocker in, tacked, and lay out how I want that part to attach to the frame supports. I'm not reinstalling new versions of original bracketry and there's a lot of rot, so I need to balance structure with body work...they are going to go hand in hand until it's solid.
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