I've started cutting out the rusty, fibergl***-repaired floor on my '61 Ranchero. The rear part of the floor in the cab, and behind the bulkhead into the well area in the bed are screwed. One shock mount is bad, the other not so good. My initial thoughts are to completely remove and replace the shock mount "crossmember" with rectangular tubing. And, maybe some small crossmembers under the floor to re-strengthen the structure that's coming out with the floor pan. As it says in the ***le, I need some guidance and inspiration.
In my '63 Ranchero, I had a similar, though not nearly as bad, problem. I was fortunate enough to be able to use POR-15 products; it's not fibergl***, and the bonding material is amazing. If mine were rusted through, I think I'd have followed your suggestion: tubing and sheet metal. Some time back I bought a bead roller from Eastwood; I haven't used it a lot, but the beads you can put in a panel will give it an authentic look, and strengthen the panel significantly. The bottom of a Ranchero is really flat; you don't have a lot of space under it for bracing materials, or a great place to weld them in. If you can replicate your panels with beads in them, then find enough good metal to "plug weld" to, you can probably get this figured out. BTW, you probably already know that the Ranchero floor pan is the same as the station wagon; parts car? Good luck!
When I replaced the floor in my wagon I ordered them from Dearborn I got the left one and they back ordered the right one got tired of waiting for it to come in so I went to a tin shop and had it made.They used the one I had as a guide and it was $75 cheaper than Dearborn if you look at the pics you can't the difference so I would see if you can have them made.Veach
Rockauto.com has floor pans that are good quality and pretty cheap... Plus you get 5% off with a promo code.
Yep, I used Rockauto for the front pans on my 1960 Ranchero. I thought the rear pans weren't that bad and then wished I would have gotten those pans as well instead of the homemade patches I did back there. I did the floor on a 1963 Ranchero a couple years earlier along with some patching in the area below the rear shock mounts. My 60 was a lot more solid so I didn't need to make repairs back there. I didn't and wouldn't cut out any of the support structure. Drill holes in your new pans and then plug weld them to the support structure. I used a product similar to POR-15 afterwards to paint everything and then sprayed some undercoating on it as a sound deadener mostly where the road debris will hit. I made my own toe board panels to replace bad areas. I'm not sure if they sell those but I think they do. I did have to redo some of the bends they had in the panels to fit better... I may have some inprogress pics from my floor repairs somewhere. I'd have to look through a bunch of CDs...
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