floor pans

[ronthet]

Ok, I know things can get expensive if we try to restore totally. I have and old 66 chevy lwb and the floor board is rusted through and part of the rocker on the drivers side. I have been to a couple of body shops and got 12 to 18 hours labor to replace the floor pans on both sides. Does this sound right to those of you that have done this? I do not have the tools and a couple of other shop advise since I do not want to restore to be a show truck, but to drive daily, that I should just fiberglass the entire floor board. Any one out there done this and if so how long has it lasted.

 

[dvalentine]

Fiberglass won't stop rust. If you don't remove all the rusted, rotted material it will just keep spreading. If the condition is as bad as you described, the can supports are most likely rotted too.
Fiberglass won't fix that.

See if you can get the shop's price down by doing some of the disassembly yourself. You should be able to get them down to 10 hours.

But FIX It Right !

DV

 

[bk65]

If I could have found a body shop to replace the floor plans and rockers for only 12 to 18 hours labor I'd have written the check on the spot. The floor pan pieces available are close but not exact replacements so there's lots of custom work that has to be done. If this is a shop that has done this before on similar vintage trucks then perhaps you could trust their bid. If they haven't, they could have a lot more hours in it than they thought they would. And this means a bigger bill to you.

If you want to see how ugly floor panel and rocker panel replacement can be check out http://community.webshots.com/user/65k10

Once you start pulling out the rusty parts you'll often find there's no solid piece to weld to so then even more parts have to be replaced. I'm still kicking myself for not buying a rust free cab I found for $250.

Have fun