I have a little cancer in the toe kick area of my floor pans. Drivers side is worse than the passenger side. I see I can buy premade floor pans for $60 each online, but wonder if anybody has made them from scratch. I have access to a sheet metal brake and am fairly handy with a welder. Any advice??
Hi Coach, i´ve made my floor pans from scratch, for two reasons. First reason, was the quiet expensive shipping for "just" a pair of sheet metal, but since your not from overseas, this should not be an issue. The other reason was, since i have most of the tools for body work at home or at my workplace, i wanted to do as much myself as i could. There are a few beads and cutouts to be made, but nothing a handyman couldn´t handle. If you want to be sooner on the road again, or have many other things, to repair or fix, go buy the readily available ones, as fabricating will take a few more hours
My Dad and I made ours for the main reason stated by Elky67 $ and because we wanted to be able to say we did it ourselves. It took us several hours to get it right but hey we are not professionals.. YET we are getting there. Good Luck and go ahead and tackle it..
Home made ! As you have access to the proper tools . Go buy a dented hood and use the correct original thickness and composition sheet metal .
As it is predominantly flat, home patches wouldn't be hard to make with basic tools. However, the rust you see is only the rust that has broken through. The rest of the panel will have some rust also. Often times it is surprising how far you have to go to get really solid sheetmetal. I personally prefer to replace the whole panel unless it is just a little pinhole. You will probably be replacing the lower edge of the kick panel, including the portion in the pinch below the cab where the inner, outer and floor panels are welded together. Check your cab mount also, where it is welded to the vertical pinch. The bends and grooves add a huge amount of strength to a flat panel, if you make your own add them in. Search for 2 of my threads, the buildup of the 50 and the buildup of the 53, it links to a photo album of the whole builds, you can see what all goes into panel replacement.
Since I am not in a super big hurry (NoDak winter ) I will cut out until I find some solid material and then figure a plan of attack. The passenger side is in much better shape. Thanks guys.
