update on front pan remove/replace

berettafan · 07-05-2007, 10:42 AM

Well i'm finally making some real progress! i have most of the old pan removed but for the section along the front bulkhead; i didn't get all of the spotwelds on the first try and have some more drilling to do. as you can see it is not so easy to only drill through 1 layer of metal.

a LOT more rust/scale fell out when i finally removed the side parts of the pan and this is just more proof to me that what you see is only the tip of the iceberg! my car did not look that bad on the surface. Battery acid is a nasty thing and i wish a nice case of the runs on whoever failed to deal with leaky batteries way back when in this car.

removing the pan has been, for me, a very difficult process. as the experienced folks will be able to see i took a small shortcut along the lateral supports and broke out the grinder/cutoff wheel combo. the metal where the flange meets the pan on both sides was very thing and basically useless anyways. i will be POR'ing the interior surfaces of the lateral supports before welding things back together.

the only real bummer so far is the fact that i will have to do some manner of fabrication for portions of the lateral supports. if anyone has lateral supports cut out of a solid car i'd love to talk with you! i don't think the work i need to do on the laterals would justify dropping another $400 or so on new supports though. the biggest challenge here, i think, will be replacing the vertical portion of the lateral supports and duplicating the flange which is curved. (if anyone has ideas on that i'd appreciate your input!).

in removing the pan i gave up on the idea of drilling the spotwelds along the underside seam and just ran the angle grinder with cutoff wheel along the inside of the seam. i will still have to grind each spotweld down to remove the excess metal but this is, to me, vastly preferrable to trying to stuff a drill in at the right angles necessary. i have also gone through quite a few dremmel cutoff wheels and find them to be a lifesaver in the tight areas where a 4" grinder is just too big. i did find myself wishing for a nice air compressor and something like a 2" cutoff wheel attached to a small grinder.

Karb · 07-05-2007, 11:47 AM

berettafan ,
I'm curious about how you're retaining your A Arm alignment. the Arms are hanging out there in the daylight with only the rear bolts holding them. Can they still remain true like this for when you bring in the new sections with bolt holes?
I ask because I'm about to do the same with some shortnose section, and it just so happens your taking on the task before me.
Thanks

Karb

berettafan · 07-05-2007, 02:04 PM

Karb i took quite a few measurments from the front bolts to the rear mounting bolts before i started cutting. the arms do have some lateral play but i'm not too worried about it really.

robmog · 07-05-2007, 02:07 PM

i'm in the middle of replacing my front pan too.
the a arms don't move since the're also fixed by the struts.
it makes aligning the pan easy, just bolt it to the a arms before you trim the pan to fit.
i cut out my lateral supports, it makes fitting the pan MUCH easier.
trying to patch them up will be harder than you realize.
regarding $, how much is your time worth and how fast do you want to get back on the road?
i know the L longitudinal lists for $250. but there is a cheaper alternative available. pm me and we can compare notes.
btw you're doing great.
bob

jevvy · 07-05-2007, 02:15 PM

You are pretty much where I have got to so feel your pain.

I also struggled with that front section till I cut here:

If you angle the cutting wheel just right you dont risk hitting the outer panel - once I made this cut I had the rest off in about 30 mins as I could deal with each row on its own.

I have no advice on the other bits, I'm yet to cut back to good metal there yet so hope its not too bad.

ZOA NOM · ZOA NOM's Garage

I saved a ton of time using a spot weld removal bit in an air drill. I also used a sawzall where necessary.

robmog · 06:19 PM

here is where i cut my longitudinal.
it really makes for a minimal weld seam.
and the staggered joint would be stronger than one in line with the pan seam.
and here's a great website to show one way to do it.
you might know it from the early s reg.
http://webpages.charter.net/mayo/Pan_files/v3_document.htm
bob

berettafan · 04:45 AM

rob would love pic of that section removed if you have any. also got your pm; looking forward to some enlightenment here!

robmog · 07:12 PM

not the best pictures.
you can see my rust problem is a little worse than yours.
i had to remove the battery box: too far gone
i have a lot of hand fabrication yet to do.
you can see how much better the access to welding the pan will be, still have some minor fitting to do this weekend.
bob

Tim K · 07-05-2007, 08:34 PM

I also prefer to grind off the metal at the flange instead of drilling the spot welds. It leaves you with a much nicer flange to work with.

Keep up the good work.

Tim K

berettafan · 07-06-2007, 04:52 AM

Thanks Tim, i think grinding is going to be the ticket here.

Rob that is a really nice cut on the tank support. Are you using a 4" grinder, dremel or .....?

I am anxious to see a picture of the other side w/ modification you mentioned.

berettafan · 07-06-2007, 04:57 AM

Rob i have seen Mayo's stuff and studied it for a while. it is a very nice, organized presentation and quite helpful.

sballard · 07-06-2007, 11:46 AM

berettafan-

I've been following your progress and I am a slightly ahead of you at present. The front part of the pan does have a large number of spot welds. I have to admit that I just drilled through them all. The downside is that when I put in the replacement pan, not all of the holes aligned and I had to fill in several with my MIG welder. I chose to coat the pan and the flanges to which they were welded to with weldthrough primer. If I had to do it over again I would skip the primer and just grind it all down to bare metal. The welds were nasty with that stuff. The idea is that the zinc in the weldthrough will penetrate into the weld and afford some level of protection against rust, but there are lots of opinions pro and con on the forum.

I am currently fabricating the repair pieces for the lateral supports like you will soon do. It's time consuming and requires lots of thought but has turned out to be sort of fun. Be sure to test fit with the tank support before welding them in place. I am away from my home computer at the moment but will post some picts when I return.

Don't make the same mistake I did and try to install the new pan from the bottom - it goes in from the top. I needed to unbolt the transverse support for the A-arms so I could drop them a few inches in order to get the pan properly positioned.

Keep up the good work. The end is in sight!

berettafan · 07-06-2007, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sballard
Don't make the same mistake I did and try to install the new pan from the bottom - it goes in from the top. I needed to unbolt the transverse support for the A-arms so I could drop them a few inches in order to get the pan properly positioned.

Keep up the good work. The end is in sight!

uh oh, i was really hoping to just slide the pan in without undoing any more suspension bits. i would be worried about further opportunity to misalign the pan if the a-arms are swinging wild and free.

would love to learn about what you're doing on the fabrication side of things. i did find a website that detailed a simple method of flanging curved metal with a slotted pipe. it looks like it might be worth a try before ordering laterals from Restoration-we never return calls-Design or Stoddard.

and again thank you all for the positive reinforcement! i need it!

robmog · 07-06-2007, 05:13 PM

here are some pictures of the left side.
you can see where i trimmed and reshaped the weld flange under the battery box.
i'm curious about the fabrication website, could you post the link?
i've got a lot of work to do on the "nose".
bob

sballard · 07-06-2007, 05:22 PM

Unbolting the transverse A-arm support wasn't such a big deal if you've allowed enough room to crawl under there. Certainly a lot easier than taking the A-arms off as some suggest. There are 4 bolts holding it on, and then you can lower it a few inches and wiggle the A-arms around. They are held on by their connections to the other suspension components. When you need to align the pan and A-arms, the support bolts back into place quite easily. However, I needed to use a BF screwdriver to wiggle the steering rack around to get two of the bolts back in. I made a lot of measurements and was worried about misalignments but with the A-arms in place, everything aligned very well.

sballard · 07-08-2007, 06:10 AM

Here are the images of my fabricated longitudinal repairs. I haven't welded them in yet as I am still fiddling with getting the fit right. They certainly aren't as pretty as the reproductions but their cost was alot higher than the pan and tank support (+$300!) and I figured as long as my repair is sturdy, it doesn't need to be pretty because it will be covered by the tank support. I used 22 ga. steel sheet from Lowes which was as close as I could get to the thickness of the original longitudinals. If you do this, be sure to check the fitment of the tank support periodically. My first effort on the right side interfered with the fit and I had to start over. There are a lot of examples of these repairs on the forum.

berettafan · 07-08-2007, 10:43 AM

how on earth do you drop the pan in from the top? the lateral supports are in the way.

Rick V · 07-08-2007, 02:46 PM

Eric, I have nothing to offer you having never done this and am not a body man, but looks good. I expect to see your car down here next spring for the 3rd anual Rally in the Valley.
If I can give you a hand give me a call. I'm a decent welder, and a good parts holder.

sballard · 07-09-2007, 06:58 AM

Berettafan-

My experience was that when the A-arms are dropped a few inches, you can angle the rear portions of the replacement pan down to the front of the lateral supports. When I first approached this, I didn't even consider that the pan would go in from the top because the front of the original pan was spotwelded to the front of the front sheetmetal which can only be duplicated by putting it from the bottom. It almosts fits when put in from the bottom but not quite, and I ended up trimming some of the pan at the rear an attempt to make it fit. I submitted a thread on this about a month ago and several people replied that they installed the pan from the top. I agonized over this for days before I finally dropped the A-arms, squezzed it in from the top, and the fit was much better. Now I wished I hadn't trimmed the replacement pan because I will have to add a little metal back!

If in doubt, try to put in the pan from the bottom and see if you get a good fit. You might have a different pan from mine, which I bought from Restoration Design. But before you start cutting up the replacement pan, I'd try putting it in from above.

Hope this helps.