Complete floor assembly (full floor pan all the way to the trunk)

[dagenham]

I would tack weld a brace from the rear of the left door jamb to the front of the right door jamb and from the front of the left door jamb to the rear of the right door jamb creating a big X brace. With this brace in place the car cant twist, spread apart or come together.
As long as the roof and 1/4's are solid the rear area will be fine, especially if you leave the taillight panel in place.
As long as you weld the brace together at the X you can use an engine hoist to pick the body up by the center of the X brace by going in thru the door opening. If you have an engine leveler use it to balance the body from front to rear.
If you are leaving the rear wheelhouses in then maybe put a brace between them to help keep the rear portion of the body the correct width.

Just keep one major thing in mind. The piece you are sitting the body on is a reproduction piece, your body will not fit onto it exactly without some modification somewhere, I guarantee it!!
the other thing is to make sure the new setup is good and square before you set the body on.

Now that I have wrote a book(sorry) have fun and keep us posted with your progress.

 

[Fstbk]

Bump....whats the scoop on getting the two halves together?

 

[jerry S]

Not not but hell no. The bigger the piece, the worse it fits. Not to mention how heavy and bulky that thing is. The fitting and tweaking, you'll need a wrecking ball to tap that thing into place.

I did not need a wrecking ball. This 3 lb beatin' iron was able to "persuade" my one piece floor pan to fall in line.

floor has been cut out

one piece waiting to go in

finished product

 

[runawayabc123]

Sorry for the lack of updates... still working on a way to make sure we have the car fully supported AND we can get the assembly in it.

We tried a few things and the first couple tries we weren't happy with. Right now it is on 6x6s with a 2x6 under that (more for proper height to come off the stand) with those being supported by crates with backup 4x4s incase the crates fail. (no pics sorry) This is just to hold the car and work on it.

The next step is to reinforce/extra support of the car full when the floor is out. We are going to brace in front of the door (A piller, but lower by the hinges), the back of the door and again in the rear wheel well.

Now, for the bad news. Between how and then, the floor pan has developed "snot" marks. Not happy with this.

View attachment 181544
View attachment 181545
View attachment 181546
View attachment 181547

 

[Fstbk]

I would blast those areas and epoxy, for some reason I am doubting the quality of that black coating. What sucks are the internal areas that you cannot get to, but it would be worth it to drill some holes and try to bomb the insides.

It's weird how it looks like a wire welder was used, that would really bug me, the seller should be notified.

 

[runawayabc123]

We got it from CJ ponyparts and are well outside of the 60days.

What would I tell the seller?

Either way, with the risk of the "snot" marks aka corrosion all on its own, I would strongly advise others to avoid this product unless you really don't want to do all the welding or you really need all of the parts. These marks took several months to show up and it stayed in the garage the whole time. No sun, no rain, no nothing.

Getting the bastard in won't be fun either.

 

[rusty428cj]

I always strip all the e coat off any new parts we get and spray 2 coats of SPI epoxy primer.

 

[NasaGT]

I always strip all the e coat off any new parts we get and spray 2 coats of SPI epoxy primer.

+1. A couple times I have found light surface rust under the e-coat, and also found places were the e-coat wasn't bonded very well and fell off in small sections when sanded. If I didn't prep it & spray it, I don't trust it.

 

[Fstbk]

I am going to bet that is not a real E-coat, could be anything.



View attachment 180996


These look like MIG weld beads a bit.

 

[runawayabc123]

Ok, we are going to re-prime this hunk of rust. (It just keeps getting worse and popping up all over it.) My suggestion is to AVOID this item unless you plan to reprime it right away.

What do you guys suggest for the spots we can get to: (top/bottom/side/etc)

The spots we can't get to (inside the rails, the seat platform, etc)

Thanks!

 

[Rusty67]

Before you sink a lot of time/energy/money into making it right I would call CJ up and tell them this piece is DOA. Let them know the piece is simply inferior quality and that it was obviously negligently put together. You might be surprised, they may go to bat for you with the vendor and get you a good piece.

Altho, you may end up with another one of similar quality and you would have to do all that work anyways so its may be better to just bit the bullet now.....

 

[runawayabc123]

Sorry for the lack of updates, but lots of life things got in the way.

We kind of decided to take our time and let as much rust or anything show up that we could and we worked on other parts of the car. Last weekend we sand blasted it, sanded it, wipped it down and painted it.

The "snot" marks actually had nothing interesting under them. No rust. They came off clean. My best guess is salt water from the boat trip over or poor prep work and something else on it when it was painted.

Several rust spots had poped up that needed taking care of, often in patches with others that hadn't came up. I just sand blasted until everything was clean and nothing new was found. I actually did a lot of sand blasting.

As for installing it, the old floor game out last Thanksgiving and we have been working on firewall/cowl repair and some dash clean up. So, maybe in a few months will it be going in.

 

[horse sence]

i have replaced a lot of floors ,i have never seen this. when mig welding ,say the seat boxes in ,after a few days white fluff will apear but only were the weld penetrates on the under side of the floor, galvanised steel will do this also. i always blast that e coat off any way. some primers will not stick to it even though it has been sanded. i was told by a shop that sells drake floors,the only reason they coat the metal is to keep it from rusting on the boat ride over. this coating will burn off and rust quite quickly if not primerd.