Re your floor boards,
I just replaced mine. I just drilled out the old spot welds. It was a
little tedious at times but when smoothly. My body shell is removed from
the frame (I reinforced it before removal) and sitting on some saw horses.
That makes access really easy. If your body is still on the frame, you can
still remove the floor board using the same techinique. You do not have
to remove the rockers. The floor board does act as a reenforcing piece for
the rockers. But if your body is still on the frame, there should be
minimal stress on the rockers so you should be safe removing the floor
board.
The first step I took was to cut out the old floor board, leaving about 1
inch wide lip of metal still attached to the body. On the transmission
tunnel I cut it as close as I could to gain access to the spot welds.
Those little buggers are hard to get. You'll see what I'm talking about
once you start to remove the metal and look for the spot welds.
Next I just took my drill as a set of bits and proceeded to drill out the
spot welds. There's quite a few - about one every inch or so.
Along the transmission tunnel and at some of the corners, some brazing was
found. I just used a grinder to get rid of this.
Once the old floor board was removed, I just used a hammer and dolly to
smooth out the sheet metal around the drilled out spot welds and performed
any other required cleanup work.
The new board was pushed into place. I installed from the top, seating the
rocker edge first and the pushing the other side down. I used a rubber
hammer to do any fine adjustments. Once in place, I clamped the board in
firmly.
I started welding in the middle of the rocked side, working outwards on
both the top and botteom. Then did the sides, ending up doing the
transmission tunnel last. I just spot welded over the drilled out holes
thus covering them up. I also places some 1 inch beads on the inside
corners and edges. You can use a grinder to smooth out the welds, but this
is not necessary as the joint compound and weathercoating will hide most of
the welds.
If you have any other questions, please contact me.
Dave,
San Diego,
1970 RHD PI TR6 - with new floor boards and spare tire pan.
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