I need urgent help here guys and girls. I am finishing up the pass side toe board on my 57 ford wagon and the next thing up will be floor pan. However, as you can see from the photos the front floor/body brace sits higher than the tunnel and toe board by about 1/4”. This happened on the driver side as well (which is why that pan is coming back out). The body is on the frame, there is no discernible body or frame damage that I can see. The RF fender is a replacement and the rear bumper got hit and tilted up a bit but that is all I know of damage wise. Everything bolts up on the frame and body just fine. All doors open and close fine except the drivers rear door but I t hi no that is a gummed up latch. So: A) why is this happening and B) how do fix it so I can weld in new pans? Is the body or frame out of kilter just enough where I can’t detect it without measurements?
Well Looking this over I see pic #2 shows a rightside air gap between the fresh metal and the lip of the vertical piece. The why may be that years of abuse have caused the floor pan to sink lower, or the patch piece was cut too short. ( more possibly ) The left side endorses this The fix must be more metal, from where ever you can source it Sorry I you were hoping too do a concourse restoration. The pieces you have aren't that.
Tow Truck: Yes I know about the gaps, I had a hard time shrinking the panel to match the hole that I cut out. So I will be making pieces up to fill in the gaps. Considering I have no real skills and no real knowledge of fabrication I am doing decently bad/ok now. Definitely NOT a concourse rebuild. That will be for when I retire and can put her on a rotisserie. Everyone said to go the EMS route which is what I did. For the most part they are really good the toe board was off just a tad in two spots so had to massage it. I just need to figure out why the body sags in the middle so I can correct it. Then I can add new pans but I can't until I fix this problem. I am now thinking about building a cradle and jacking up the center section just a little bit.
Wheres the problem, red or blue or green arrow ? I guess your photo is passenger side and the rusty coloured piece on the left is the tunnel. I would push up as you say yourself. Are there rubber body vibration cushions that have perished ?
I was thinking use a couple jacks to raise the body up on that side a little bit and then weld in your piece. As long as the body mounts are good it should be ok. Then repeat on the other side as needed. I suspect you have sagging body mounts or body cushions that are worn down, probably unevenly.
I think that you are overthinking this, just put the thing together and make sure that it’s sealed up good and put the carpet in and call it a day
Look at other floors and see what is different. One pic, not great, but might help https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/heres-what-ive-been-up-to-57-ford.1232342/ Another, again not great focus on your area. https://www.hemmings.com/stories/re...ly-owner-supercharged-57-ford-custom-phase-1/ Video might help www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUG50hDjYgQ
Bangingoldtin: They are actually still solid. The driver side I just derusted a bit and then painted it with rust encapsulation paint. 34GAZ: The blue arrows compared to the tunnel height on the left. The rubber pads are brand new all of the way around. GordonC: It is possible (just thought about this) that the brace was forced up as the P.O. apparently liked to 4 wheel with the car. So I am wondering if they went hunting in the car and going down a dirt road just somehow forced the front two braces (dr. and pass.) upward. Would not be surprised with this car as we found bullet holes in the floor (from the inside), tears in the body from tow truck hooks and a fried to the spindle bearing race. Lostin51: I can't as there is a height difference that will leave a 1/4" or so gap that I cannot fill.
did the original floor pan have an extra "dip" in it that would bring it down to the tunnel height? did someone put bucket seats in at one time? I would just jack the tunnel up, use a two by four on the floor jack and weld it up.
The brace and/or the floor may have been welded together under tension/or compression. Some or all of what was holding it in the "correct" shape may have been relieved in this process.
Gimpy-I have come to the conclusion that is what happened. I cannot find any damage to the car at all, I looked closely last night and tried to bend it down-not going to work. So I am going to have to make sure the pan is situated perfectly and add a ton of weight to flatten/level it out and then weld it down.
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