Technical Floors

Not to technical but I have to ask , what gauge steel should I use on the floors of my 27 roadster on a A ch***is ?

 

I usually use 20 ga. on sheet metal for floors.

 

I like 18 with bead rolling
16 if staying flat

 

Imho, trust me I have never installed floors before.
I do have a 20 gauge replacement floor pan for it. ..... Is what they sell.

My issue with the 20 gauge that has bead rolling .... just too flimsy ... it will oil can on me.
If I add bracing under it ....It will be fine.
I sure wish it was 18 or 16 even better yet.

If you are building your structural support, 20 would work.

 

Thank you all for responding. I think I will use 18 ga.

 

I used 16 for my floors. No bead rolling needed.

 

18 with beads 16 without. aftermarket are probably 20 but they expect bracing to go under.

 

I used 18ga on my '54 floors and bead rolled them.




On my '27 roadster I went with 1" marine plywood which I soaked with clear varathane, insulated with Peel&Seal and covered with indoor/outdoor carpet. I'm cheap.

 

Evintho, your floors look great! How did you bead-roll it?

I have a 1965 Malibu wagon with the cargo floor almost completely rotted away. Shockingly, the rest of the car is nearly rust free. So I need to fab the cargo floor. At this point, I've only eye-balled the project. It is about 48" by 48" and FLAT. The picture below is NOT my car, but a sample of what the floor should like. Any suggestions on how to replication the set of grooves in the floor? I think I could use some sort of bead-roller. I should exact dimensions of the floor and the grooves within a couple weeks.

 

Bead roller. You will get some distortion.

This is a dual bead I rolled on this 56 floor

 

This is all 10ga. It’s what I had. It’s ridiculously ridged. No need for bracing on my brake pedal ***embly

 

you can get pre-made floor panels from ems

 

18 ga with beads rolled by a HF roller. I made my own roller dies to make a flat bottom bead and hammered a nice radius at the ends. I also re-did the trans hump later to make it look better.

Gary

 

When I had my shop, I had a few 'unchanneled Highboy jobs' (!) nobody else in the Campbell, CA area wanted to do...
'Friend of the Shop' Rich Amaro had come into some N.O,S, mid-'50s floor pans, from a mfr. in Oregon area.
Some simple measuring indicated the 'dropped center' of these lent themselves to EASY retrofit in one '32 Five window, one '36 Five window and a '30 Model A roadster body on gennie '32 rails!
Don't despair, guys. Sometimes the least likely spread of stamped metal just may fit, the low spots giving room for feet, pedals, etc.! SOME cutting and welding was necessary, but the gross expanse was covered 'customlike', with some shape usually only 'wished for'...
If you have something with 'shape', guys, take a few minutes to see if it can work for you!
You DON'T have to 'bead' everything.

 

I fed the panel while my wife did all the work! I used a cheap HF bead roller.
Anthony looks like he has the proper bead roller to do floors like yours.

 

Question about bead rolling and floor panels which is pushing the limits of my skill set.. I'm to the point where I need to replace the rear floor panels in my '54 Ranch Wagon and EMS still doesn't have them available. Which is a drag since the front panels and toe boards are very high quality. So my question is do I fab the panel to fit and then bead roll it or will the bead rolling cause the panel over all dimensions to shrink? Thanks.

 

The panel I posted above with all the beads didn’t change.
For panels with weld flanges that bend at a 90, I bead roll first then bend the edges.

 

1926-27 fords had wood floorboards .

 

18 gauge and bead roller...

.

 

I generally use 18 gauge & bead roll to reduce oil canning.. HRP

My old '32 pickup floor



The ranch Wagon



HRP

 

Thanks

 

So did my '29. I decided not to re-invent it. Much easier and quiet.

 

I've done some but 1 thing I've never done and curious if any of you guys have is actually measure how much a panel shrinks due to rolling beads in it.

It's one of those things that I was always going to do just to know but always got too busy to measure.


.

 

Do a YouTube search. Iron Trap and others pre stress the sheet metal to minimize distortion inherent when rolling stiffening beads.

It’s above my pay grade so far, but what I remember, they beat the metal with a hammer and backup bag, then English wheel or planish it so it’s flat again.

I’ll try it this spring when I resume working on projects.

 

Lai

Laid out a floor. 36” wide
Ran 8 almost full length beads. Was still 36” wide.

 

Yes, because it actually stretches the metal AWAY from the positive or male die. If you sonic checked a bead it would be thinner than the parent metal.

And anytime I see a floor without bead rolls it just screams amateur

 

^^^^^^
This. It stretches the metal, doesn't shrink. Nobody mentioned step rolls. I like to lay out a design and step it up or down in sections. With a little imagination you can do something like an OEM pattern. Most would never know and you still get the benefit of strength and reduced drumming. Might even lay in your stick on mat and end up with a flatter floor for it? Just sayin...

 

I keep getting asked how I figure out a panel shrinking from running beads.
I just tell em I bend the end flanges last so it doesn’t matter.
The guys in the jeep forums kept asking about how much the panel shrunk or if I pre stretched it…
Just lay em out and take off.

 

Step beads do look professional

 

I don't know why people are afraid of wood.