71 RT resurrection

[gdrill]

And the driver's side.........the sad part is I have all kinds of little touch up to do as whoever removed the floor Just hacked it out. They used a plasma and an air chisel and just cut all over the damn place. Oh well, I'll slowly patch all the little slices up.

 

[gdrill]

Test fit.

 

[gdrill]

She's a permanent fixture now! I an going to try and get the rest of the floor in tomorrow. That was quite easy actually.

 

[DetMatt1]

I find doing this sort of thing very enjoyable. With as much structural work as you are doing what steps have you taken to insure that when it goes back together everything is in the right spot?

 

[gdrill]

Well since I got the car stripped apart in the form of a skeleton all I have done is measure side to side and up and down and make sure things are even as I change pieces. And believe it or not, it is actually square. Fortunately they had left those two braces on the piece I just changed. I believe they actually are what kept the whole thing solid.

 

[RUNCHARGER]

This car is actually pretty solid. I find a lot of those eastern cars are rusty everywhere, your car is pretty solid but with rusty sheetmetal in localized areas.

Sheldon

 

[gdrill]

Speaking of measuring. The piece I just installed is an AMD part. It is very nice and fit exactly where the old piece came out perfectly. However I did have a dilema while I was positioning it. I was measuring and making it even but it just wouldn't come out perfect. It was out 3/16" forward and back when I measured. It didn't make sense because everything was fitting nicely. After looking closer, I determined that the steel was put in the die crooked. It is actually stamped a little off square. The flange at the front for the next floor pan and the one at the back for the trunk pan told the story. In the end I used stamping lines not edges for fitting. You may not be able see it here, but the driver side flange is actually 3/16" longer than the other. This messed with me for a while. But I will be aware of this for future parts. In the end, it is in the car square and you wont see the flange anyway, unless you crawl underneath with a tape!

 

[gdrill]

Now this took a bit to get close enough for me to be happy. The front edge of the pan did not line up exactly with the firewall, of course. So I put a porta power in under the cowl and gave it a shove down. Then I lifted the back end and supported it in a raised position. This closed the gap at the front up nicely. It matches perfectly now. Once that was welded in square I used the outer seat bolt holes to determine the positioning. The rear pans are just sitting in there right now, I had to take a break! I may finish them up later on tonight.

 

[moparlee]

Man you've been cookin today! Those floor pans look great and it's starting to look like a car again.

 

[quapman]

I recommend that you put the seats, or maybe just the tracks in BEFORE welding the rear footwell panels and check them for level side-to-side. The guy who did mine did not do this and my seats sat VERY crooked. Basically, he had the panels too far apart when he welded them. You might even have to jack the main floor toward the rear in order to get everything level prior to welding.

 

[quapman]

One more thing...I think one of the holes in each of the repro footwell panels is relieved upside-down. When you put the rubber plugs in, they should be flush to the inside, not the underside. I saw this on two peoples' build threads recently. One guy cut & flipped (welded) the recess, the other guy just dollied his the other way. I think he used a big socket or some other large, round object.

 

[DetMatt1]

Love it, nice work! Feels good doesn't it?

 

[gdrill]

Feels great! The seats are a good idea. I am going to measure in 2 other Challengers from the roof to floor to see the height. I measured last night but it was too dark to be confident. But this could actually do either, it could make them level or crooked! I will make sure they are right. Don't want that after all this effort. The holes in the rear pans are stamped upside down too. I am going to cut them out and weld them in properly.
Thanx guys, I'm really excited now, it is looking like a car again!

 

[gdrill]

I cut these out so I could set the stamping proper. I used some paint as an outline to give me a squarish cut.

 

[gdrill]

These are going to be the toughest pieces to fit. They have to fit on the front of the frame rails and against the side of the rocker. The stamping is a little off so there will be some working them to make them proper. On a side note, once I attached the front pan to the torsion bar cross member it was within 1/2" of my measurement from another car. It is a little higher than factory. The seats look good but I think I will push it down and try it before I decide on the final fit.

 

[moparlee]

Well shoot, I guess I am too late but those particular holes are probably not stamped wrong. Attached pic (p-poor photo) is of a factory pan in my 71. That's tape you see in the hole. Don't know why they would have stamped these couple of holes this way. Pic is a little deceiving, but it is definitely stamped upward.

[/QUOTE]

 

[gdrill]

Are yours popped upwards? I looked at a 70 and a 73 and they both were the other way! Damn, all that work for nothing.

 

[DetMatt1]

That particular hole seems to be the opposite of the rest on my '71 too.

 

[moparlee]

Yep, I looked at it today. The rear foot well forward hole on each side is definitely popped upwards. You do such nice work it will look like they have never been messed with. But, damn, like you say work you could have spent doing something else.

 

[gdrill]

Lol. Thanks Lee! Appreciate the compliment. Well short of a little grinding she's done! Yeah what a relief. It took about 3 hours. The driver side was near perfect but the passenger side was a little off. Not bad but a little forming was needed. This is a big task out of the way and now I feel I actually have a worthy project here! Up till now, it was just a shell with some documentation. I'm afraid I'll be done for a while now though, got the call to head up north. Back to the grind stone. But I got what I wanted done before I had to go.