Floor pan installation on 1969 Firebird convertible

hey welcome back to project Mockingbird my name is John this the Firebird restoration station and let's talk floor pans today we are standing in where the floor should be on a 1969 fireberg convertible there's a few things I want you to see or know before trying to throw this thing in that you probably need to beware for the best fitment long lasting and basically say make the best of what you got kind of thing and they minor little things but they're going to kick your butt later on so I want to show them to you now so you can plan ahead or inspect these areas in particular now I'm fully aware every build plan is slightly different than the other now I've left this front brace in CU it's a convertible and as you can see the reddish color primer that is well through primer that's where I cut the initial part of the floor pan out I finally got around to removing the rear section because I now have a full driver side rocker panel so I have some structure back into the car these are running parallel to each other um but in prepping it one of the things that's very critical Coupe or convertible doesn't matter this area right here of the rocker panel it needs to be extra extra strong in fantastic shape BAS B little to no blemishes we've got some very light rusting on this one but not bad I'm going to call that good um now even a coupe has an additional brace to right about here inside this area here reason being is this is where they're going to tie the frame rail to the rocker panel they got a torque box that goes between these two so this metal is what you're welding to right here so it has to be good then it ties in it gives you the structure of the car so I'm just saying reason I didn't painting it is I wanted you to see what we're working with here very minimal resting for our 50-year-old part I love the condition of this and the other thing I wanted to point out this little square hole here is you guys some you might know what that is for some maybe you don't this is the rocker panel drain there's a little rubber flap that goes over top of that we're replacing the floor pans depending on the brand I've had a problem where the floor pan is not cut out right and it goes right over top that opening you've already got it put into place how the heck do you cut it well that's what I'm saying before you install the floor pan make sure you Notch this out that's one of the little tips I want to give you uh so make sure this is is good make sure this is notched out but check this out here the obr floor pan already has the notch cut out for it I'm pretty sure AMD doesn't um the other thing to keep in mind this is that area that welds right down here like I was talking about to the rocker panel and this panel here the reinforcement is what they consider the torque box now the factory of course welds right on this flange here but they also weld this flange to the rocker panel well guess what we cannot get in there to weld that again so I'll do the normal plug welds through here rosette whatever you want to call them all through this area here then I'll actually then when this rocker panel is in place I'll come through here and do a little you know half inch 3/4 inch stitches of actual weld to the rocker panel cuz I try to compensate for the fact that I can not plug weld or spot weld like they did from the factory so that's another thing you want to try to keep in mind um next thing we're going to do of course uh kind of mention you'll see the weld through primer so prep all your surfaces put some kind of a primer or something in between so they don't rush and that's one of the things very important if you're reusing the frame rails same thing clean them up and then put your well through Prim with these frame rails I am not going to reuse I kind of let them in place just as a point of reference um but we all know this car got hit hard back here in this corner and as I've been kind of monkeying around in here and once I cut the floor loose we notice this dist between the rocker panel and the frame rail popped over this one's actually closer you can almost probably see with your naked eye on the camera there's about an inch difference kind to find out I think the Collision actually hit this way I was looking inside this Fender whe it's actually kind of Bulge just way this whole back seat brace push that way and if we look carefully at this fender well oh look what we have here a nice little Buckle I've been working on separating it but I wanted you to see us where I finished it but it's creased here pretty good and it's actually kind of buckled this component here um I was going to replace the outer but we're going to go ahead and replace the inner now too just the same unfortunately but that was something that I didn't see until we get this whole car all torn apart verifying that you know the Collision damage a little heavier than I thought and even this panel here it's got a little bow to it then our floor pan now the trunk floor is kind of hard to visualize but it's actually kind of got kind of a dip in it this way so that trunk floor and frame rails are absolutely 100% trash um that's why I'm saying what I was doing this car not really worried about making it bending it back cuz I'm replacing all this stuff no reason to waste the energy but just making some observations this thing got hit hard somewhere in its life all right so me and you and the viewers and everybody out there next step here will be just go ahead and put a little bit of weld through primer on that seam to help keep corrosion down and while that's drying we'll get that Flo pan all prepped and ready to go again I'm not reusing these frame rails I'm just going to use these as a point here as a reference I've measured from this flange up to the torque box up there in the front we're within like an e inch side to side I was kind of surprised this side wasn't pushed forward but it's not so I want to use this as a point of reference I put that floor pan in bump it up against that so when I put this back into here this area here will be resting up against those frame rails and one more thing I need to mention if you're messing with a convertible you see this bracing right through here you'll see a little raised section now I replaced this rocker panel but there's a little raised section CU there's technically a panel that resides up slightly behind that and that's these ears here this is another brace that's typically only on convertibles um you replacing floor pans they put this on Coupe or convertible but this ear here actually supposed to go up underneath that there in the past I've normally just kind of lobbed these off here and then put the floor pan in then weld this back in um I really don't want to cut this I'm really beginning to think that I may instead of reason it becomes a problem is you got to drop the floor pan in from the top you got frame rails or firewall in the way um even if the frame rails weren't in the way it's kind of hard to tuck it up in here because it has to go over that ledge there so you almost always have to inevitably drop them in so my options are cut the bottom of this off one maybe just remove just a small ear here and then reweld in I think that's how I'm going to do this car um but in the past I have cut those so if you're messing with a convertible plan ahead either cut those out or I guess if you really wanted to you could reverse the operation lay it on top and weld it in I don't think it really matter a whole lot but the factory it's actually underneath and this piece thing goes on top and if you look here at the passenger side well it's still their Factory horri not so great Mig welds I may clean those up and go over it one more time but um I I I don't think I want to cut these off so there something else as for a convertible make a plan for this before you get too carried away and then as for this flange here if I wasn't putting a trunk floor in it needs to be cleaned up wire brushed or whatever and then put some of your weld through primer I'm just going to use this as kind of a shelf to hold my floor pan into place until I cut this out now this is a brace on the back side here that has that rubber bump stop for the axle um I just have haven't messed with taking that off yet I'm just cheating for now and just kind of bent it down out of the way because I'm going to be taking the entire trunk floor out of this car actually probably next as soon as I get this positioned into place I guess one more little mention I just kind of talked about these here but if you buy an AMD floor pan these are not installed yet so that might be another way to sneak that panel in there so another plug there for AMD didn't do it this time on this car but I'm liking this panel it has some Advantage it has this Notch has other things there's pros and cons the manufacture these things but I'm pretty convinced there's only two people actually stamping this stuff out um I've already installed the convertible floor bracing this is the original one that came on the car just had a sand blast and clean up look right there is the original part numbers or whatever the date code whatever they actually put on that thing but that is 100% welded in and ready to go so I'm going to work on getting all the packaging tape and all the goofy stuff off it then we going get this thing in position and we're going to drop this thing in here and see how it fits all right floor pan in place ready for launch give it a full send right here into place least that's my hopes I goals and if you guys can guess what kind of car that is there I will give it to you for free just needs a little work put back together um but nonetheless we got everything prepped everything ready to go looking really good I'm hoping everything goes according to plan they should fall into place we do some test fitting and we're going to need this big old ratchet strap now I'm going to tell you why here in a minute you will see why maybe two of these can become your best friends especially on a car that's been crashed but nonetheless let's get that dumped into place oh yeah one more thing one last look here of the floorless Mocking Bird anyway back to that of course this is one of those times that it'd be cool if you had some friends that come over Play Cars help me put this thing in place but it's really not that [Music] bad [Music] T okay well I guess it's kind of sore in there so you want to see what that looks like have gave it a full send not too bad kind of fell into place moved it around just a little bit but I need to go towards the rear of the car ever so slightly I did not cut these tabs off I'm gonna maybe lay them on top or cut them off tuck them I I just haven't decided just bit of an experiment we're going to see how that goes now what the huge ratchet strap is for well look at the daylight between the rocker panel on the floor pan I got nearly qu inch 38 of an inch of a gap now I anticipated that that's why I had the ratch strap sitting on the floor you can see my foot down here got a nice even Gap that seems to happen when I cut these things apart but even if you put bracing on I still find that I have to pull the rocker panels in with one of those things there so I need to get the position back a little bit then we'll Loop to big ratch straps pull the rocker panels in get the height adjusted and we get this thing put in place may have a couple screws all right now here's your tip for the day chunk of 4x4 bfh that means your best friend and we've got a little little tap here slide this thing right is into is place um yep I think that should just about do it now we'll get tape measure out and see how that works but I like to move this SC if you need to go back the other way stn that seat base that should be really really close so let's do some checking on let get you down here under the car and see what I'm working on down here at the moment as you can tell there's a gap between my floor pan and the frame rail about a quarter inch or so um the sledgehammer gets there and kind of bounces back well this hole in the frame is fantastic the only reasons why I didn't cut these out then I'll tie that up here to the front drain plug hole in the floor pan and we just pull the cord tight here right just strap it into place and then you can watch that thing pull right into place and watch How I do it with just one hand now check this Gap out here I already closed up some one more click and there you be that's going to get us where I can start measuring and get things into position but I love ratchet straps they're going to be your friends from this point on in the car cuz you need to pull these panels into place as you cut them a car apart even if it's not been crashed you'll see they pop pop pop move around and now that I've got that position we can start working on maybe closing up this Gap here between the rocker panel and the floorboard oh actually before we do that one more thing if you notice back here no more ratchet strap in the back of the car isn't bouncing up and down anymore because we're starting to relaxed but one I'd like to find out is not we've completely removed the floor what happens when I let go of this guy right here cuz she's still very very very snug but I'm going see if this thing even pops up okay well okay so the jack stand I can still wiggle it but look I'm basically pring on there's not a lot of weight pressing on that thing yet but it's it's sitting on now so we've definitely got a lot of the twist out of the body but I'm going to leave this snug cuz I bet you by the time I secure that floor pan in our twisting woes are gone now of course the back of the car behind the rear floor pan is still Twisted but that's all getting replaced but the good news is the front half is looking a lot better so I'm going to Snug that back down and work and get those ratchet straps in all right got the straps all round around here now we just need to pull it tight snug give them a couple clicks now a convertible rocker super heavy gauge deel there's no really chance of probably denting those like Coupe I've done this before but he may put a little wider piece of metal on the corners cuz it the metal on a coupe is a lot thinner but normally don't need to pull that hard on a coup cuz it's got a [Music] roof okay now like Som show you the Gap at the same time but it's already closing up I've only got a couple clicks out of each one but keep working each back and forth until you pull these rocker panels back together and close that Gap up and then we can actually start adjusting the height to make sure where it needs to be basically how tight you got to get these I me kind that's probably like a c or a d but go ahead and keep cranking on to like a high J and that would probably get you there now you musical folks probably just caught the joke there [Music] but yeah yeah oo much better okay let me show you what we got and oh look at this here now we have a slight Gap there but I sure you it looks worse than it is with the daylight I bet you if I took a pair oh we go bu a pair of of vice grips here I bet you this Gap will close right up there yeah cool simple as that now go ahead and clamp all way down the whole Edge there it looks real good pull up tight to the back pull up tight here to the front um that's a sticker so anyway other side let's go check that out here same results very minimal daylight between them now what I need to do though verify my body mount uh Heights are the same get my chunka all throt out we'll compare that to what it was before now if you guys all remember special tool Elemento it's right here put that right and oh it's actually sitting a little high I didn't seat all the way down on my nut about to maybe 3/16 of an inch or e in or so so we're actually on get this one out of the way we are resting on it we're poking up just a little bit so I need to bring this floorboard up just a little bit to get that seat all the way then we'll clamp that floorboard into place so probably to take that back off let me see I both hands here freed up I'm going to pry that up and then I'll clamp it again you know sometimes the simplest answer it was right here in front of you and typically the best um but now I can use the floor jacket underneath the convert brace I can actually work this thing up you can watch that nut hold the phone steady settle right into place and I'll clamp that in there it goes and watch that floorboard come up and settle now that thing is sitting where it needs to sit now I'll go ahead and clamp this into place on this side okay just so you want to see that maybe up close slide right down into place I'm resting right there on my bubble level so we are good I going threw a couple screws to hold it in bounce over the other side see how it's looking special tool Elemento po again I made that up in case you guys didn't know definitely bottoms out let's take a peek what it looks like under here and oh yeah we're hovering I mean what 16th of an inch above it I'm going to probably call that good I may step on that push it down but that's actually acceptable so I'm going to call that good so I'm going to clamp that into place put a couple screws in there the last areas that really need to verify the height is here the torque box ties to the rocker panel make sure it's the right height the once that's good the rest of it's not as critical try to keep it lined up with the pinch belt if possible we'll go in here we'll tie all the screws and that conal bracing and then I'll actually reinstall this guy back on the driver's side cuz when it comes to convertibles what they do different than a coupe we have these panels in the front Corners one and two we have that bracing underneath which you guys have seen kind of makes like the U shape whatever J and the cross remember and then the convertibles also have this additional panel right here on the floor pans that's the difference between a coup and convertible that that Center sheet metal is the same so let's get the measuring these ones back here in the back let's get down here on the passenger side first and what I like to do we still going to use our Bubble Level it is level and true to the floor on our body is level so now it's a good point of reference side to side but I'm going to go where the frame attaches here to the torque box the measure to the floor that's going to adjust the height this is where the spring mounts to the car so just my thoughts how I see it that's the most critical point in relationship to our rocker panels now as you can tell our reading is f get the phone the camera down here 15 and 3/4 to our top Edge now note the floor pan is slightly lower than the rocker panel back here in the back these aren't always true and lined up I would rather know that my body line here my quarter rocker panel line and my floor pan is where I'm adjusting the height to cuz this is what you're going to see when it's going down down the road so this side's 15 and 3/4 we'll jump over the other side if it's the same this is going to have about uh 316 of a little flange hanging down and I consider that kind of normal you'll see that sometimes but uh do what you want with that information but I'm going to check the other side and see if it matches all right let's hop down here on the driver's side and do the same thing and see where we're at and see if we can split the difference of it's matching up it's getting us in here this is my high-tech frame table remember now you got access to a body table or a frame table and go it jump all over but my garage doesn't have room for those so we just make do a little bit of the oldfashioned way here so me get this perpendicular and if I get a straight shot on that you can read that or not but it's actually just a little bit high on this side so you either need to bump the other side up or bring this side down so since that side's flange is hanging down a little bit I'm going to bump it up just a shade then maybe then it would kind of look like this side all tucked up nice and even so I'll keep working on until I get both numbers the same but this is where I like to tie into it again right where the torque box and the frame will meet up when it's all assembled okay that looks a lot more good kind of tucked up that up a little bit more still hanging down some but really like that so the next thing now as I come through here and do the normal technique here the old vvg drop some screws every about two inches inch and a half and go down each rocker panel completely and then I can pull these ratchet straps off I don't know about you but that looks a whole lot more good than the Rusted busted Twisted Mocking Bird body shell that we had in here only a few weeks ago moving right along on this thing but um here's my two cens on brace do what you want this information I always say this and I'll say it till probably the day I sto doing this the right way the wrong way in the vvg way the vvg way is I don't mess with the bracing because I would have braced this car prior to you saw that gap on each side of that rocket panel as this car rusts and falls apart they do the same thing they spread out those rocker panels get further and further apart if I would have tied those together with metal no way would I've been able to get the rocker panels to pull back in I would have had to cut it Loose anyway in that point what good did it do for me but the flip side is you see me climbing on the floor I got my bubble level I'm taking measurements I'm using that tape measure I'm moving things up and down in and out using ratch straps to play the note J to make it work so do what you want with that information the idea of me sharing you what sharing with you what I have done here so maybe you can develop your own plan use my plan or use somebody else's technique if it works for you please use that way and result we're just trying to put these cars back together share the journey have some fun learn a little something and maybe put some life back into this old Mocking Bird so she can go down the road straight doors opening and shutting and looking like a really nice car without blowing the budget cuz I mean if you got an opportunity to use a frame table or frame Rack or whatever or a big chunk of Steel to billis off of go for it I don't have one it's two car garage most of you probably don't either that was the idea behind all this so nonetheless I'm going to keep working on getting this floor pan welded in that's probably not exciting you've seen me do that before so that's going to take up a lot of my time probably for today then other than that I'm start working my way towards the back of the car working on pulling the quarter panels and the fender Wells cuz I'm going to do an inner so don't want to miss out on that so hit the Subscribe share with your friends let's make this channel continue to grow and I really appreciate all your cool comments let me know how I'm doing I appreciate it makes it feel like I'm doing some help out they're doing some good out there for you so nonetheless whatever the heck we end up doing next time I will grab the camera and hope to see you guys then

Channel: VVG Restoration Station

Views: 3,602

Keywords: Pontiac, TransAm, Transmaroado, Firebird, restored, restoration, diy, Camaro, Metal work, rust repair

Id: 3LvEWOkMJ8s

Length: 21min 21sec (1281 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023