A little Thanksgiving Help - Bugsy is now up in the air

[Jim_Gruber]

Here is what happens when you have 2 Son in Laws and 4 Grandsons over for Thanksgiving Dinner. Bugsy has gone from waiting patiently to up in the air and on the rotisserie. Now to figure out next steps. Lot’s of repair work was done to the chassis. I did not realize there was a complete passenger floor installed. Lot’s of detail now that I can see underneath and looks like lots of work. I do see that a DS Floor ought to be done but I’ll ask the opinion of BCF to do some more patching or replace the DS Floor Pan.
Notes to anyone using engine stands for a rotisserie. You need bottom braces once you get things up in the air or you will bend things you do not want to bend. Don't know if I did any bending that is not fixable but I think all is well. When we started things looked like this /-----\ from the angle of the engine stands. Again 2 wheels on the engine stands not the center leg in place. Adding a ratchet strap hooked with the strap hook through the bottom of the engine stand and tightening the ratchet strap changed angles to |-----|. I added bracing using electrical conduit on each side. Rotisserie rotates easily and I can go totally upside down if desired. I left chain hoist running to the ceiling in place with a little bit of tension on it to relieve some pressure on the rear mounts. With chain in place the whole assembly feels very stable.
Anyway I'll ask for opinion, leave the DS Floorpan as is or take the opportunity to replace. Next step will be to roll outside and pressure wash and degrease the chassis. Now to formulate a plan.

 

[JPSmit]

Looks good and nice to have people to sing for their supper. I will leave others to speak of floors, but, can I suggest you attach the stands to one another - even with a long 2X4 so that you won't have them separate when you try to roll them - don't ask me how I know.

 

[Jim_Gruber]

JP that's in the plan. The conduit is drilled so screws go into conduit so there is more than friction holding things together. Having the ratchet strap really stabilized things and got the engine stands parallel to one another.

 

[apbos]

Jim
Patch. With a care you will be able to clean it up seamlessly. New panels are not 100% copies of the originals. I sand blasted, patched, POR 15, primered, and painted with Raptor liner inside and out which can be tinted with your paint color. It will last for centuries in our dry climate.
Paul

 

[Rut]

Jim,
Congrats on getting it on the rotisserie! I was trained under the Peter Ploof school of repair and that is to remove as little good metal as possible vs replacing entire panels. I would poke around on the ds floor and see how solid it is and patch what's necessary.
Rut

 

[Jim_Gruber]

Rut, DS was totally redone. New floor on that side and no issues. Discovered major issues by PS floor. Seal sealer was covering some major floor rust. Bulkhead is fine but floor is separated from bulkhead and after I remove the seam sealer major rust and holes began appearing. Trying to remove the lower spring plate caused a tear in the floor. Whoa that is not good. Going to need at least 1/2 PS rear floor. Will know more after I figure out how to get the lower spring bracket removed. Pics tomorrow.

 

[Jim_Gruber]

Houston, We have a problem. Here are pics of the PS floor and where floor joins the bulkhead. The back of the floor is all rotted and does not connect properly to the bulkhead. Originally I thought this was a simple patch but it's going to take more than that. Looking for advice of how come the bottom spring plate won't come off. It may have been welded to the crappy piece of rusty steel??? Now what. Also obvious if the rip in the floorboard from trying to remove the bottom spring plate. How do I cut out without damaging the Spring box which was welded in as a new piece. WTH they would go to the effort of replacing the spring box but not replacing floor on this side is beyond me. That gap in the front of the spring plate was reveled after I removed a piece of seam sealer. Some for rear where attachment is to the bulkhead. Covered with seam sealer. All bolts are out. next thoughts are getting underneath with reciprocating saw and slicing to see of there are welds holding this bottom plate in place. Add the stiffening plate that goes from bulkhead to stiffening plate on the floor is welded up with huge stick welds. Going to be a treat to remove.
Advice guys please.

 

[Gerard]

Jim,

The spring plate is not supposed to come off. It is spot welded to the floor pan, and that's how it came from the factory.

Looking for advice of how come the bottom spring plate won't come off. It may have been welded to the crappy piece of rusty steel??? Now what. Also obvious if the rip in the floorboard from trying to remove the bottom spring plate. How do I cut out without damaging the Spring box which was welded in as a new piece.
Advice guys please.

 

[Rut]

Jim,
As Gerard says the spring plate is welded to the floor pan and the weld goes thru to the hanger box. If the floor around the spring plate is solid you can cut the new floor pan to fit. If the steel is rusted you will need to drill out all the welds that hold the 3 piece sandwich together and spot or puddle weld everything back together. The bolt holes are there to hold everything together, but are not strong enough to make it permanent...you gotta weld it! That's one of the welding jobs I farmed out to a professional welder.
Rut

 

[Jim_Gruber]

OK the DS was not welded and just came apart when I pulled the bolts. So that would mean I need to drill out the floor strengthener as well as the bulkhead stiffener. All of that will need to be replaced. This is not going to be a fun job. Why oh why did the body shop cut corners on this side. Going to be a PITA to fix. Anyone got a rear piece of a PS Floorpan taking up space that they want to get rid of. Time to get the spot weld cutter fired up.

 

[Rut]

Jim,
The bulkhead and floor stiffeners should be pre drilled and easy to bolt together to make sure everything fits as it should. Sometimes the bulkhead to floor angle will be a little different than the bulkhead stiffener angle and it will need a little massaging. Use grade 5 or 8 bolts and a bfw (wrench or breaker bar) to tighten everything down so you'll know how much it needs to move. After everything is in place, bulkhead and floor stiffeners, floor, spring plate, etc. and screwed together ( I use self tapping machine screws) and nothing is twisted or out of shape/gap (doors are mounted to insure proper gaps) drill holes that are big enough to weld thru in the spring plate. You also have to weld the bulkhead stiffener thru the bulkhead into the spring hanger...I found it easier to do this before I welded in the floor, but after I fit it all together.
Rut

 

[Jim_Gruber]

My concern Rut at this point in time is getting it apart. I do 't want to disturb the Spring Mounting box as it was just rewelds as new metal was put in between stiffener and side of the car. There are big stick welds securing the bulkhead and the bulkhead to floor brace. There is a hole in the middle of the lower spring backing plate I'll assume that is where the lower Spring plate is welder to the floor. Unfortunately that piece of the floor us totally rotten.

Do I need to remove the bulkhead stiffener and floor stiffener to get at the area where floor meets with bulkhead. Assumption is yes and that I will need to add some extra bracing __/ like that between bulkhead and floor to close up gaps back there.

Is there a You Tube Priner on getting things apart before I start drilling out spot welds for the floor seams. Time to retread my Restoration manual. Seemed pretty simple the thought of drilling out a lot of spot welds to replace floor. Getting bulkhead bracing apart seems challenging at this point.

 

[Rut]

Jim,
We need more pictures of the bulkhead, spring hanger to better understand what you are dealing with. The bulkhead sheet metal is relatively easy to cut out and replace and the spring plate has about 9 heavy duty welds and it takes some time to cut/drill out to remove. When replacing your floor pan you really need to secure it well around the spring plate and the lower edge of the bulkhead which triangulates the bulkhead-shut panel-floor pan. IF the majority of the floor is good you can patch it and I suspose you could weld extra sheet metal strips between the spring plate and floor to give you a strong joint. You can also weld a new 'foot' to the bulkhead where it attaches to the floor to make it nice and strong. That would be a simple and acceptable solution to me.
Good luck, Rut

 

[Jim_Gruber]

Rut,
will try and get pics tonight or tomorrow AM as I am working from home tomorrow. I can't see right now where welds are that need to be drilled out to remove the lower spring plate. I'll provide detail on bulkhead, spring box, floorpan, etc. right now the floor between spring plate floor is totally rotten both in front of the lower spring plate as well where it attaches to the bulkhead. Spring box itself appears solidly welded in place. If I can install a new floor that does not need to be sandwiched between lower spring plate and spring box I could be fairly simple to fix. Pics are worth a thousand words of course. More to follow. Thanks

 

[histerical]

I found this on mine. Once the thin metal "box" is compromised, the water runs right into the void between the brace, the floor on top of the hanger plate ; truly a bad design. If they had made them just a tad wider, maybe the dirt and water would have drained out.. After rebuilding the boxes, I packed mine with fibrous wheel bearing grease and sealed them up for good.
Bill