Floor Pans

[Tom Wilson]

I recently cut the bottoms out of my floor pans and like Tom Y's they were not salvageable, but the top portions looked pretty good! Some on the surface obviously, but they do not appear to be rusted through. The car body/chassis goes to the blaster soon and we will then know better what we are dealing with. However, as this was a California car from day one, rust should not be as big a problem as on most. From what I understand, most of it will probably be original rust from the factory anyway. Now of course, there is that repair job from the previous owners fender bender to worry about...

Chassis.JPG (108.53 KiB) Viewed 5224 times

Floor Pan.JPG (99.49 KiB) Viewed 5224 times

[tyang]

Hi Tom W,

I noticed on your floor pans, the stiffening beads in the sheet metal run longitudinally to the car. Was there enough of the bottom floor pan to see the same beading? The floors I we took out of 2259 have an x pattern. Perhaps there was a change from early GTEs to late GTEs.

Tom

[Tom Wilson]

Take another look... At least on my car, the bottom sheet had an "X" and the top of the pan had the longitudinal beads. This photo shows Zac bending the bottom back after we had cut three sides of the bottom sheet off (and removed the filler), so you can still see the "X", along side the complete one to the right. Not sure why they did that, but it may have had to do with the different stresses you would get from a seat vs. the flex on the bottom of the car.

Floor Pans 2.jpg (108.15 KiB) Viewed 5142 times

[250GT]

Tom and Zac, didn't you both consider dry ice blasting before opening the double panel ?
it such a clean procedure with in the same time an absolute clean chassis
well that would be my choice
And not expansive they come you any place.
and save so much time.

best

Cornelis

[zac]

Cornelias, we did consider leaving the floor pans but the corrosion on the rear pans was significant enough to warrant the removal of the bottoms for further inspection. No amount of blasting or chemical stripping will get rid of the insulation sandwich and water that gets trapped in between the floor pans so I could never see just leaving them alone only to have them rust out in the future after the car is all painted and put back together. As Tom said the car is going to be blasted probably sometime later this month and we will know more about the integrity of the rest of the car but to my eye the body looks to be in really great shape. I have looked into the dry ice blasting thing but it has not really caught on here in California yet but it is an interesting process and I would love to do away with the mess that other blasting medias cause.

[250GT]

the results ZAC are absolutly unbelieveble ,and no scratches on the orginal factory paint on the innerwings and bottem
Here some results all undercaoting away. its NOT necessary to remove rubberbrake lines everything can stay were it belongs !
I paid for a full bottomtreatment about 700 euros.
and they come here to youre home gerage.

C.

[kare]

Not sure why they did that, but it may have had to do with the different stresses you would get from a seat vs. the flex on the bottom of the car.

The prevent the structure from bending out and resonating. To get an idea about the forces applied, you should remember that the difference in air flow speed over and under a wing makes planes bigger than your house fly. In a car the speed of air flow on the other side of that sheet metal is zero and hearing a set of BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING every time you exceed 150 km/h does not really spell out "quality" for somebody who just bought a new car.

This is also why hardtop windows never were very popular in Italy. At 200 km/h your wife's hair is on her face - with windows closed. No problem in the land of 55 MPH.

Best wishes, Kare