Quote:
Originally Posted by tip
Nice job with the rust repairs so far, I'm in the same boat. Did you just cut until you found good metal? For the floorboards and door sill, did you take any precautions to take to keep the cab square? Trying to figure out how I'm going to do mine the best way.
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Thanks for the compliment. I was looking at your thread and luckily for you your floors don't seem as bad as mine at 1st glance.
What I did on the drivers was 1st wire wheel and do the screw driver test to start "poking" around to see how far the thin metal went. I started to cut away at the floor little by little but realized it was easier to fit the floor pan above the radius that goes around the foot well.
Knowing that I had good metal in the truck above that point I marked my new floor board about a 1/2" above the tangent point in that radius and trimmed it away. I then used sheet metal screws to "pull" the floor into place firmly against the existing floor and marked my cut line. I cut approx. a 1/16" of an inch below that line in the truck knowing with the existing floor removed the pan would drop in further. Then it was just a process of dropping the pan in and trimming were it didn't fit like I wanted. I trimmed either the cab or new floor depending on how the fit looked.
A tip is to locate and cut out the spot welds inside your cut lines 1st. This will help you establish were the cab support and floor braces are so you don't cut through them.
I got lucky on my drivers side and the cab braces/ supports were all still sound so I wasn't worried about the cab moving. I also left the doors on knowing that they had fit the factory rockers well and used that as my guide as I tacked those into place. Also any time the door didn't need to be open I kept it shut to not put extended periods of weight on the a-pillar just in case.
The floor support from my cab mount to the a pillar/ inner rocker on the passenger side of my truck was rotted away so I had to be more cautious on that side. I ended up taking measurements of were the inner rocker was located in relation to the cab mount before I cut it away. Also when it cam time to fit the new metal I ended up using a jack to lift the a pillar to where it lined up well.
Here's a pic of the jack and floor pan being held down with sheet metal screws as I fit it. After getting everything located I removed the doors for welding.