steel guage/thickness for floors/body?

[MyCreation68]

Just a quick question. I'm going to fab up new floor pans from the seam at the firewall to just in front of the seat mounts. I also need to fab up new inner fenders and a new rad support. Can anybody tell me what guage steel is best for repairing the floor pans(I have the rusted out pieces of the floor pans, and a couple little spots I'll have to cut out and rework. I have one major rust area:

This area is still structurally sound it just has a couple pin holes.

The car must have spent it's life on the dirt roads out in BC for a long time, it's inner splash shields where rusted completely away and dirt was sitting on the inside of the fender which is why the bottom corners rusted out so badly.

My inner fenders are rusted out right along the top edge whee the fender bolts and seeing as I need to custom build air bag mounts I'm just going to drill out he spot welds on the whole front clip and remove them. My dad punched a hole in my stock rad so I guess I'll be getting an aluminum radiator anyways so I'll fab up a new rad mount to hold the headlight buckets(my stock rad support is rusty so I'm thinking the easiest way would be to do the custom rad support and fab it to hold everything it needs to.

[sunsetdart]

I would go with 18 ga........thats what alot of the cars back in the day were. Most newer ones today are 20.........remember, the smaller the gauge number, the thicker the metal.

[Adam]

I used 20 gauge for the floors that I fabricated; it's easy to work with and plenty stiff especially if you run a couple beads in it.

Now, why don't you just buy floor pans? The ones from Year One go from firewall seam to the front seat mounts (they cover about 2" of the seat mount "lump"), and from the top of the rocker panel to about 2 inches up the floor hump. Top quality parts that don't have a "slit" cut in them where they shaped them.

I think they're about $160 for the pair and I had them within 2 weeks, and they were back ordered. The parts that they had in stock that I ordered at the same time, I had within a matter of a few days.

Seriously. Very, very nice pieces, and they fit properly too! I can snap a few pictures of them if you want.

Adam

[MyCreation68]

I used 20 gauge for the floors that I fabricated; it's easy to work with and plenty stiff especially if you run a couple beads in it.

Now, why don't you just buy floor pans? The ones from Year One go from firewall seam to the front seat mounts (they cover about 2" of the seat mount "lump"), and from the top of the rocker panel to about 2 inches up the floor hump. Top quality parts that don't have a "slit" cut in them where they shaped them.

I think they're about $160 for the pair and I had them within 2 weeks, and they were back ordered. The parts that they had in stock that I ordered at the same time, I had within a matter of a few days.

Seriously. Very, very nice pieces, and they fit properly too! I can snap a few pictures of them if you want.

Adam

Personally I can spend 20 bucks(maybe if I find steel in the yard at wok I'll probably get it for free) and fabricate a floor pan and spend that 140 bucks elsewhere on the car.

[Adam]

I agree to a point, but when you have as much rust/metal work to do as I do (your car seems in better shape from pics I've seen), if I made each and every patch I'd be 300 years old before it saw the road again

How much is your time worth to you? And can you make them look as nice as repop floor pans? Not being a smartass. Just my two cents.

Adam

[MyCreation68]

I agree to a point, but when you have as much rust/metal work to do as I do (your car seems in better shape from pics I've seen), if I made each and every patch I'd be 300 years old before it saw the road again

How much is your time worth to you? And can you make them look as nice as repop floor pans? Not being a smartass. Just my two cents.

Adam

No I understand where your coming from> I have access to a 20 ton shop press and I'll be making my pans with that. maybe they won't look as good as factory but personally I don't care it's floor it will be covered by carpet and sound deadener and is just over the front subframe. so unless your looking nobody will know the difference.