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  View original topic: new pans
zookpr47 Tue Dec 27, 2005 11:23 pm

i was just wondering if anybody had done floorpans themselves, dumn question.. from taking them off to welding new ones on. how would you go about takin em off? what type of equipment would be needed to stick them back on. ie: spot weld, arc weld, superglue?
thanx.

johneliot Tue Dec 27, 2005 11:52 pm

Are you doing it with the body on or the body off? As a first step, buy the BugMe Video on floor pan replacement. It is well worth the money. They show you how to do it both ways. I've only done it with the body off.

John

my61rag Wed Dec 28, 2005 12:20 am

defenatly not superglue :shock: i just cut out what was bad and welded in that section. Idealy you could cut it with a cutting torch or something like that, but i used a cutting wheel. then just weld it up with any type of welder.
here is a pic of it finished before i painted the pan. . . . . . :)


Randyzzz Wed Dec 28, 2005 1:00 am

The last one I did was body off full replacement. Use an air-chisel to break the OE spot welds, grind smooth, and mig in the new pans.

But...the OE pans are alot thicker than any repop pans I've seen...I would replace only the needed sections if at all possible.

my61rag Wed Dec 28, 2005 1:09 am

yeah my replacement was a little thinner than i would have liked it to be, but it worked. i got mine at cip1. doa search for pan eplacements and it will tell you who to order from.

Fusillade Wed Dec 28, 2005 12:36 pm

my61rag wrote: yeah my replacement was a little thinner than i would have liked it to be, but it worked. i got mine at cip1. doa search for pan eplacements and it will tell you who to order from.

After a brief search of posts in this area, a number of people lean towards wolfsburgwest (those were the ones that I used and they worked fine).

azgreenskeeper Wed Dec 28, 2005 6:38 pm

Ditto...

Bug Me Video, air chisel, mig & Wolfsburg West... pics in my gallery if your interested.

bugnut68 Wed Dec 28, 2005 9:04 pm

My stepdad and I did the pans in my '70, with the body on. began by yanking out all the interior stuff (obviously), then unbolted all the body to pan bolts on the outside of the pan's edge. Used a sawzall to cut away the rusted sections (it was soft front to rear, huge gaping holes in back). If you look under the car you can see the edge you want to cut alongside the tunnel. Once the pan is cut clear, you can chisel the lip that is spot welded to the top of the edge of the tunnel inside the car. As suggested earlier, grind it smooth and make sure it's clean before fitting the new pan and stitch welding it in, every six inches or so. We used seam sealer once we were done. The trickiest part is up in the front pedal cluster area and footwell areas on the driver's and passenger's sides.

There was an article in a 2004 Hot VWs that explained the whole thing, don't recall exactly which issue, though...Sept. or Oct. maybe?

And I agree that Wolfsburg West pans are the best out there...

gerg Fri Dec 30, 2005 8:04 am

Here is how I did my pans way back when . . . :shock:

my65bug.com Pan Replacement

zookpr47 Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:35 am

oh man. thanx.
my65bug.com was f***in sweet!

DaBraink Sun Jan 01, 2006 8:24 pm

Just started to replace the pans on my '63 today. I removed all bolts attaching the body to chasis.

After cutting the old pans out, I raised the passenger side approx. 3" by using a floor jack on the outer portion of the heater channel. I used a piece of 2 X 4 to spread the load on the channel.

Once I had the clearance, I pushed the new WW pan into the passenger compartment from the bottom.

I was able to install the entire pan, and not remove the body all the way. This also allowed me to check the bolt hole alignment by raising and lowering the body the 3". After a bit of trimming, the fit is nice and ready to weld in.

I hope the drivers side will be as easy.

:?: If the pans are bolted to the channels on the "bottom" where they (the bolts) support the pan, then why not bolt or rivet them to the center channel where the weight is supported on 3 sides by the lip? How about spot welding to the heater channel?

:?: Also, would there be an advantage to using studs in the heater channels as opposed to bolts. I think that it would be easier to work with rusted nuts than bolts breaking off in channels. Just a thought.

Thanks for taking time to read this long post.



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