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Spitfire spitfire floor pans

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bruno70

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I have a 70 mkIII with so-so floor pans, a few small rust holes here and there mostly in the area where your feet would sit. The po had left the transmission cover off for some time and water had accumulated around inside. The rest of the floor pans seem to be in decent shape. I was wondering if it was worth it to replace the entire floor pans? Or would i be better off just cutting out the bad and welding in new metal? Also the inner sills are ok but the outer rocker panels had rusted through and the po just riveted new metal over the old. Any comments or suggestions by those of you who have tackled this kind of repair would be greatly appreciated. I have a mig welder and with practice think t shouldn't be too much trouble.
 
Depends on how much you want to spend and what you plan to do with it. I've only found floor pans sold in complete sides. IMHO, it's alot of money to spend to replace only the foot well. For a driver, I'd weld in your patches, Por15 'em, then hit the seams with a good seam sealer. On my car, I replaced the driver's side foot well with a home made panel. I have a friend with a metal roller we used to add ribs for rigidity. The passenger side only had a few small holes, I just cleaned/cut until I was into good metal and welded in patches. Not exactly OEM, but then again this car is not going to be a show car by any means. https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=21610 The rockers are a bit more tricky. The holes may be a alot bigger than you first think once you get to cutting out the bad metal. I'd trim until I found solid metal then butt weld a patch in. If you can seal it from the backside then I would, or the rust will most likely come back. I patched up the rocker on my car and sealed it up from behind, but my car had a big hole in the inner sill.(it had been sitting for about 20 years with no top at an angle, all the water collected to all the low spots to the passenger side.) Of course I then patched up the sill. New rockers are about $100 each from BV. With all my patching done, next big project on my Spit will be replacingthe d-side qtr. Looks much faster than repairing what I have... Good luck!
 
Thanks for the info, that was pretty much what I was thinking about doing. No intention of making this a show car just something fun to drive on nice days. I looked at th floor pans at vb and they do seem terribly expensive. Just wanted to make sure I was on the right track.
 
What really makes me laugh about BV is they sell patch panels for under the seat and not the footwells. I've never seen a Spit rust out under the seats... Call me crazy. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif
 
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