How many hours to replace a floor?

[chevynut]

I typically don't do this kind of work for my customers but I agreed to build a new firewall and fix the transmission tunnel that another shop cut out of the HEMI55. They cut it out from the firewall all the way to the rear seat. I had a section I cut out of another floor that I was going to use and began trimming away the junk welds that the former shop did on the floor. They were apparently going to screw the new transmission tunnel covers (three of them) to flanges they welded to the floor.

As I got to fitting the pieces I had, I crawled under the car to scribe some cut lines. I noticed several pinholes in the driver's floor pan. There are lots of welds in the rear floor pans, probably from "repairing" pinholes there. Also, the center floor brace has a 10" wide section cut out of it with the ends capped, allowing the floor to sag in the middle. There were also some previous lapped patches on either side of the transmission tunnel.

After assessing where I was, the work required to fix everything, and the condition of the floor, I decided it didn't make any sense to proceed with fixing what was there. Steve would end up with a mess and my work might be wasted if he decided he didn't like it

So I recommended that he replace the entire floor in the car. I found one on sale on Ebay for under $900 shipped and he's ordering it to have it drop shipped to me. It's a 1-piece Golden Star floor with inner rockers. I told him that I wasn't sure I wanted to deal with it, but I guess I'm stuck doing it. :eek:

It's a HT but the outer rockers are good (so it seems) so I'm not sure I need to brace the body, though I might anyhow. Taking the body off is easy.

Anyhow, for anyone here who's done it how many hours do you estimate to cut out the old floor, prep the seams, fit everything, and plug weld and grind the new one-piece floor?

[55 Rescue Dog]

Too many variables, that I couldn't make a guess, other than like most things I try to do that should only take an hour. I should multiply the time, and money by at least 5. Good luck.
Probably only took less than 20 minutes on the production line when new. Plus employee pay/benefits, etc.

[carls 56 (RIP 11/24/2021)]

being an HT, i would brace it. better safe then sorry.

[NickP]

60 hours including trunk on the last HT I did. I did brace it with an X. Included in that hour figure however is mini tubbing cuts in the floor section. Trunk was preconfigured for tubs. The time is not absolute, I'm away from main computer and on LapTop on the beach but it's close.

[chevynut]

Thanks Nick. I was thinking of something around 40 hours myself, which sounds like it may be close considering the main floor is about 2/3 of the total floor area. However the rockers have a lot of plug welding that may increase it some. Working from the bottom up I was thinking 10-16 hours to remove the old floor and prep the flanges and other mating surfaces. Then another 8-12 hours to fit the new floor, and drill all the plug weld holes. Then 16-24 hours to plug weld and grind everything. That's 34-52 hours or an average of about 43.

When I did my Nomad floor it was two separate floor halves and all the braces were loose. At the time an assembled 2-piece floor was over $2700 shipped, without rockers. So I fit and assembled my whole floor myself. It was a big job and took me 6 weeks working a few hours at a time. I'm not sure how many hours it took but it was a lot more than 40.:eek:

There are a couple of bosses and flanges that I'll have to cut off of his Torqueflyte transmission and I'll probably have to split the transmission tunnel to raise it a bit for the trans to clear. The bosses mostly interfere with the toe boards which I'll also be replacing. The last shop cut the toe boards down the middle, so that's extra work I'll have to do.

Does the rear seat bracing need to be removed or can you work around it?

I really wonder about the need for bracing because the floor width is determined by the new floor and the trunk will be left intact, so side-to-side bracing is really not going to do anything with the trunk floor holding things together. The firewall and rear seat bracing will help too. The only thing that concerns me is the integrity of the rockers so I'll likely brace the bottoms of the door openings somehow. Can you explain your rationale for cross-bracing?

I don't think Steve has a problem regardless of how many hours it takes because he trusts me to be fair. In fact he has told me several times that I'm the only guy he trusts to work on the car....which isn't necessarily a good thing :p. The last shop he took it to really screwed things up and I had to correct it all for him. I tried to get him to take it to Matt (my painter's shop) to have him finish it but that hasn't worked out yet.

I'll try to keep track of my time and post my results here for future reference in case anyone else does this.

[chevynut]

Well after discussing this with Steve he asked me to take a closer look at the trunk too. It's a mess. Someone cut it in half and replaced the rear half. They patched the spare tire well by putting a rectangular sheet of sheetmetal under it, and welding it from the top. The rectangular piece is still there under the floor. There are pinholes along the weld and it's warped badly. There is rust and holes along the wheelwell flanges and the back corners have been patched, but there's still some rust holes.

So it looks like we're probably replacing the trunk floor too. I asked Steve to come up and take a look at it because I didn't want to do something he doesn't think needs to be done. I'm not sure what level he wants to take this car to.

Is there any need for the trunk braces if you're not going to put the stock tank in? Looks like the just get in the way of another tank.

[NickP]

Regarding your thoughts on the inner rockers setting the width, I have to disagree. Every floor I've done has required the inners to be refined in their position relative to stock width (I braced everyone (5) in an effort to maintain actual stock dimensions) and found every single one not matching the original dimensions. One, was even 1/2" off. Granted, that's only 1/4" to the side but if you pull the bottom over to match, alignment issues will arise. Let us know how things turn out. Is the trunk to be minitubbed? If so, consider real deal steel's item that is pre done for their wider tubs.

[chevynut]

Nick, I was referring to the rocker pinch weld flanges setting the width where they meet the new floor. I assume these are made with the correct width floor panel. If it's not correct, how do you correct it? I'll take measurements before I start cutting. Thanks for the heads up.

[chevynut]

Hey Nick, Steve wants to replace the entire floor including the trunk floor. Did you use separate trunk and main floors, or one that had them already welded together? I see a 1-piece floor from toeboards to bumper but it seems a lot more expensive than the two are priced separately. What "braces" are optional on the trunk floor?

[chevynut]

One more thing....I plan to use GS floors. I noticed that a fully welded trunk and main floor are around $2500 with free shipping. The main floor separately is around $900 and the tunk floor separately is around $800 for $1700 total shipped. What does the $800 difference in cost buy you? I know it saves some welding of the floors together but it seems like a lot of money for a few spot welds.

[NickP]

Both actually. The 57 got the deepened tubs from Real Deal Steel and the trunk pan comes pre configured for that. I did all of the cutting on the front floor while it was out of the car. Somewhere, I documented the cut lines, maybe on my picturetrail account. Once fitment was completed, I joined (welded) the two out of car. I had sheet metal screwed them before hand so I knew it all was correct On the 55 vert, I used a toe to bumper. no tubs. Two others, toe to bumper. All real deal steel.

[LEE T]

Well after discussing this with Steve he asked me to take a closer look at the trunk too. It's a mess. Someone cut it in half and replaced the rear half. They patched the spare tire well by putting a rectangular sheet of sheetmetal under it, and welding it from the top. The rectangular piece is still there under the floor. There are pinholes along the weld and it's warped badly. There is rust and holes along the wheelwell flanges and the back corners have been patched, but there's still some rust holes.

So it looks like we're probably replacing the trunk floor too. I asked Steve to come up and take a look at it because I didn't want to do something he doesn't think needs to be done. I'm not sure what level he wants to take this car to.

.
Starting to sound like mission creep. Better stay away from the outer body panels, because it seems like a real hack has been working on it. I know you don't want to get into body work.

[chevynut]

Starting to sound like mission creep. Better stay away from the outer body panels, because it seems like a real hack has been working on it. I know you don't want to get into body work.

Exactly. I don't even know why I'm doing these floors to tell the truth. It's the last thing I'm going to commit to doing on this car. I might add a gas tank support if he wants one on the frame, since I have done that for several C4 conversion frames. At least I know what I'm getting into there. :)

[chevynut]

I'm kinda wishing I hadn't taken this project on, but Steve is a nice guy and he's been good to me.

I've been working a few hours a week on this floor and I braced the body, cut out the old floor, cleaned up the flanges and fit the new trunk floor. I found out that the car has been hit hard in the driver's quarter and the outer wheelhouse pieces are all junk. I had to remove them all the way to the rocker so I will have to replace them. The passenger side wheelhouse was also damaged so I had to remove part of that side to get the trunk floor to fit. I'm replacing the entire wheelhouse on the driver's side and the back half on the passenger side.

On the main floor, I bolted it to the chassis and found that it sat low on the passenger side rear. I had to shim that location up to get it level in the chassis. Then I cut holes for the C4 dogbones and made covers for them that I've tacked on. I have split the tranny tunnel and made a filler piece for it to raise it up for the Mopar tranny.

The trunk floor is screwed in place where I thought it fit best and I dropped the body onto the chassis with the new floor bolted to it. The fit looks fairly good but there will be some trimming to do. I noticed the rearmost driver's side body mount hole is forward of the passenger side. I think this is because the car was hit on that side and the taillight area and the lower corner moved forward a bit and it was not pulled back all the way.

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[scorpion1110]

Boy thats a lot of work. I am tired just looking at it :)

so far so good.

[55 Rescue Dog]

Too bad that is a lot of time working on someone else's car instead of your own. Ouch. I won't work on anybody's stuff if I can't get it done in a day or too. My project is already taking just 4 times longer than I thought so far. There are never enough hours or energy in a day to get much done of anything else either. Plus, I am so much better at getting nothing done, while wasting so much time thinking about what I want to do, or should be doing.

[scorpion1110]

Too bad that is a lot of time working on someone else's car instead of your own. Ouch. I won't work on anybody's stuff if I can't get it done in a day or too. My project is already taking just 4 times longer than I thought so far. There are never enough hours or energy in a day to get much done of anything else either. Plus, I am so much better at getting nothing done, while wasting so much time thinking about what I want to do, or should be doing.

You are right RD. I have just enough energy to work on my project. I have the endless supply of "friends" who always need my help, but never offer anything;like a few $$, replace shop supplies, nada.

So I just work on my stuff. CN, I hope your customer/friend appreciates your effort and labor.

S

[chevynut]

If I wasn't retired there's no way I'd be doing this work....I just wouldn't have the time. In fact, I don't know how I got anything done when I worked full time.:D

What started out as a transmission tunnel patching project has turned into a replacement of the main floor, trunk floor, and 5 pieces of the outer wheelhouses plus the wheelhouse seals. I noticed there is some rust in the bottom of the rockers, so I'll probably be patching them too. I told Steve I didn't want to get into doing any (exterior) body work on this car. :???:

[567chevys]

Looks Good but looks Like it was mess before you started, I'm sure Steve will appreciate it .


Sid

[chevynut]

I pretty much got the floors located and clamped today. The trunk floor was already screwed to the body before I dropped it on the chassis. Had to do a little trimming on the brace behind the door on the driver's side to get it to go up where it needed to be. Now I need to start screwing it together.

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[BamaNomad]

A new installed floor sure changes the appearance of most of our old trifives! :)

[chevynut]

A new installed floor sure changes the appearance of most of our old trifives! :)

I'm of the opinion that no matter how good your floor looks, if there's any rust it's probably rusted out a lot more on a 60+ year old car. Steve's floor looked pretty good for the most part. There were pinholes in it which is what caused me to recommend replacement. As I took the floor out, I found a lot more rust that wasn't visible. The insides of the braces are bare.....they're rusty. Under the a-pillar brace were rust holes and the remaining metal was thin and almost all gone. Beside the rear seats and under the seat there was a lot of pitting, which was close to popping through.

I think replacing just the floor pans is foolish, especially when you consider all the welding required to do it right. Overlapping and filling with bondo or seam sealer isn't "right" to me. And that doesn't address the rest of the rust that's surely hiding.

With full floors so cheap, it's the only way I would address a rusty floor. When installed, you get new inner rockers and even the braces have primer inside of them. They'll last your lifetime.....or more.

[55 Rescue Dog]

It's going to look great. It's just too bad it's one of those things that just get covered in carpet never to be seen again.