How to install Gerson pan halves

[M113]

So Kris Eagle wanted me to create a thread on how to install Gerson's pan halves because he was interested in how I did them and he thought others would like to know. What I am going to show you is the way I came up with the job, others may have a different approach.

To begin you need to know a few things to keep or find replacements if yours are rotted out.

1. Jack points
2. Seat tracks
3. Gas Pedal bracket
4. (4) nut plates that hold the center bracket for the sub frame to the pan
5. (2) welded nuts that are on the rear of the pan (explained later which ones)

Things you need to make and do:
1. Braces under the pan on the outer edge (explained later)
2. Remember to drill holes for the pan boits (Gerson forgot to add 2 holes in the rear).
3 Battery hold down stud
4. Weld up pedal assembly hole on right sides for LHD car

Something you should consider is making a rotisserie because you are going to flip the pan a dozen or more times. Also makes it easier to weld/ grind.

First thing I do is cut out the pan sections on both sides. Start your cut wherever you like. I cut about 1/2" away from the tunnel flange down the length up to the rear wall and then cut out to the outside edge. Then I cut the front edge about 1/2" away from the flange to tunnel starting from the oustside edge.

IMPORTANT do not cut through the welded seam near the outside curve. Hard to see in the photo but this is where to cut.

Then I cut out the rear section along the curve of the deep sections and along the back side of the wall. I cut around the rear wall braces and jack points. I remove these later.

So starting in the front I prep out the "pockets" that receive the front indention of the pan half. This is why I told you not to cut through the seam. Cut about a 1/2" before the seam as seen in the photo above.

I start by using a cut off wheel to remove the bracing below the brackets. I forgot to get photos of this, but remove them any way you can. I do not try to save them because they are welded in with a lot of spot welds and seam welds. I just cut them in pieces and grind away the remnants. Now you should see what I have in this photo:

I then grind the inside of the cup until the sheet metal splits

I then grab the inside metal and wiggle it out breaking the welded seam I told you not to cut

After this you should have just some pieces to grind away

After grinding it should look like this

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Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[M113]

Now for the rear

IMPORTANT measure the distance between holes on the rear. I will add pics of this later as I forgot to take some. Look at your Gerson Pan half and count all the holes for pan bolts, you should find the last 2 in the rear are not drilled. Measure these now on your pan.

I start with a cut here and stop before the welded seam

Then cut about 1/2" before the weld seam from the inside edge to the first cut you made. At this point you should be cutting of the weld nut plate that I mentioned you need to save. I will add pics of this nut later. I forgot to take a pic.

Clean the metal and find the spot welds

Then plan your cut. The cut that has spot welds you need to cut a line through the middle of the spot welds but DO NOT cut all the way through. You only want to cut the top layer of metal. The other side is the flange you need to plug weld to later. Then make a cut in the middle of the channel. Try to duplicate the cuts I made here:

Now bend the metal off the area you cut through the spot welds

Now make another cut like in the picture and bend away this metal

You should be left with this

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Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[M113]

Now you need to prep the tunnel if you havn't already done so. With the pan upside down. Cut the length of the tunnel from front to back along the tunnel flange splitting the spot weld and leaving a lip for you to weld to. I forgot to take pics of this, but I will add some later.

Now it is time to fit the pan half. First set it on the pan with the front indention on Gerson's pan resting in the cup that we worked on in the beginning. Rest the rear down as well as you can get it. At this point it will not fit well. There is a lot of trimming we have to do.

Start with a rough estimate on how much to trim off the front edge. Keep marking long and trimming as needed. I try not to trim to much until I have got the entire perimeter close to fitting.

Now that the front will sort of lie down where it needs to be, mark a rough cut line down the length. I tend to mark and cut several times. So don't try to get it in the first shot. You may end up short!

After you get the front edge and the whole length to fit, you need to work out the rear. This is how I start that.

Trim off the area I marked and lay the pan back and trace the edge of the rear.

Mark a line for the rear wall and the rear most flange that you will be plug welding to and drill holes like this

Now place pan in for the final time and clamp along the back edge and front edge if you clamps that will fit. Down the length I use sheet metal screws to hold everything down.

Weld the whole seam from the front to the back and it should all look like this now

I will add more photos of the bottom as I forgot those as well.

I will show the rest of the things as I do them. This is where I left off tonight. So repeat everything for the other side.
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Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[vlad01]

nice work.

[Notched]

Fantastic How-To! Thanks!
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Phillip Bradfield

Current stock: '57 Panel Bus, '63 Rat Notch, '64 Baja, '66 Variant, '67 Convertible Ghia, '68 Squareback, '69 Squareback, '69 Fastback

Southern Oregon VW Club -- http://www.sovw.org

Oregon VW Forum -- http://www.oregonvw.org

[supersuk]

Wow, i'm surprised to see how well your pan fit. I had to modify my Gerson pans at the rear and the front. Looks like your pan was pretty much drop in! Lucky you.
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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[M113]

1 thing I didn't mention is the front edge u need to mark and drill holes to plug weld the front edge down. I have a spot welder so I didn't do this step.

I have now done 5 pan halves and they all fit exact. Gerson has made a fantastic piece, well worth the price.
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Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[M113]

So here is a few pics that I didn't get last night. First off how the front should look

And marking for holes for plug welding. I drew the holes because I will be spot welding instead.

This is how I start making my cuts. I already made one cut to get closer so that I can eye the next cut

This is what you want to end up with along the whole length of the tunnel

This is welded up all the way from front to back.

Welding the top side of the pan where the other seams were in the front and back

Ground down welds on bottom

View from the top and bottom

See how the tunnel looks from the top nice and tight from front to back

And now I need to prep all these pieces and continue tomorrow.

_________________
Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[slamrbri]

Did a floor pan in a '69 Camaro a few years back, what a PITA! This pan is looking awesome man, great work so far. Thanks for the how to.

[M113]

So I forgot about this little problem since the last time I did this. I should have welded the jack points to the pan halves first before installing to the pan. If you do it first, you can drill holes thru the pan and plug weld from the top as well as the welds on the bottom like in the photo. If you wait like I did, the small brace and the wall are in the way of plug welding from the top. So I was only able to weld from the bottom like the factory did, but they also spot welded it too.

Now in the front I made the piece that I talked about earlier. You should make a cardboard template of the one on your pan before you start cutting up the pan. I know I should have mentioned it at the first post.

Seam up the edge like the factory did!

Now back to the rear. This is the nut plate I asked you to save. The last 2 holes need to be drilled, and this nut plate needs to go in one of them. I will try to add drawings with measurments later. I don't have any editing programs yet on this computer.

When you cut off the rear section earlier there was a welded nut hole on the rib of the back support. I don't know how to describe this exactly, hopefully you understand what I'm talking about. Measure 7 1/8" from the hole center and mark it and drill a hole. From the same starting hole measure 14" to the outside edge and mark and drill. Open up the holes to the same size as the other pan bolt holes. Then weld in the nut plate to the first hole that you measure 7 1/8" (diagrams later will make this clear).

Now for the seat tracks. You sholud make these little pieces. They get welded under the seat track on each end. I forgot to take a pics when I welded them on.

The measurements here are 15 7/8" from the back wall to the back edge of the rolled part of the seat track. 19 11/16" between rolled edges at both ends. Diagrams later will make this clear.

And finally test fitting seats. Workded out perfect.

So hopefully one more night of the final details and off to powder coat on Friday. This pan is pretty rusty, I hope it makes it through blasting without causing any more repair work. We will see.
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Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[Brent]

Great posts and awesome work.

We need a technical sticky for this kind of stuff.
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69 Fastback Build
Berg5 Build

[Bobnotch]

And for those who don't have a Blue Bentley, here's a link to building the factory seat jig (from Russ's site).
http://classicvw.org/gallery2/v/special_tools/T3+seat+track/
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Bob 65 Notch S with Sunroof
71 Notch ...aka Krunchy; build pics here;
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=249390 -been busy working
64 T-34 Ghia...aka Wolfie, under construction... http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=412120

[M113]

Bob I wish u posted that earlier, like 2 years ago when I did the first pan! No excuse for me cuz I have the Blue Book and never even looked. That jig would have been very useful all these times.
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Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[Bobnotch]

[krusher]

Good stuff will use this when i do mine this winter
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(06:31:07) RoachGhia: "i drink dick way too fast"

[M113]

So here is last few details.

The center bracket for the sub frame:

As you can see my nut plates were destroyed. So I had to make some. Although I could not install them the way factory did, I am hoping they will work this way. I used some pan washer plates and a flanged nut from Lowes.
I did manage to bend one nice to fit the correct way, but these are too short and make the nut not sit flush and also crooked.

So I set the center bracket in the correct position and marker the holes. Then drilled he holes and welded my new nut plates on with seam welds.

Next I added seat belt plates I cut out of another pan a while back. I want to use a lap belt only instead of the shoulder only belt. So now is the time to do it.

The battery hold down stud. I used a lathe to shape the head. But you can cut the head off and get a thick washer and weld and grind to get the same effect. Once again I used a pan plate and rounded the ends. I used silcon bronze to fill in the stud to the plate as welding would be tricky.

And more thing you need to add to the list is a nut for the negative battery cable. I used the same flanged nut. I plug welded from the inside to the nut to give it a cleaner look. Also at this time weld in the gas pedal bracket. I forgot pics of that.

So pan is done and ready for blasting and powder.
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Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[M113]

So pan is back from powder coat and looks great. So this is the end of this How To.

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Joe -----------
68 Ghia Vert

[krusher]

Perfect!
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(06:31:07) RoachGhia: "i drink dick way too fast"

[MonT3]

Thanks for sharing your process of replacing the pans. You covered areas I didn't plan on and after looking at my donor pan, need to work on incorporating those areas to my Gersons as well. Great reference and thanks again for posting it.
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MonT3
67 Squareback
64 Squareback
63 Squareback
Engine rebuild
Trailer rebuild

[Bobnotch]

Something for anyone doing this job to keep in mind, is that not all pans need to get seat belt mounts attached to the pan. In the case of this thread and pan assembly, that pan is an early pan, going into an early body Notch that originally only had 2 point seat belts (hence the reason for the floor pan mounted set up).
Also, I noticed that since there are no rear seat hinges, that this pan is probably for a Notch, and didn't get the extra "bridge supports" that support the rear foot wall and hinge assembly. This means IF you're doing a Square, you'll have to add them as well, regardless of the year of the car. Just a heads up.

The pan in the above pics looks great, and will make a great foundation for the car. Nice job, and excellent write up on the process. Thanks for showing us.
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Bob 65 Notch S with Sunroof
71 Notch ...aka Krunchy; build pics here;
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=249390 -been busy working
64 T-34 Ghia...aka Wolfie, under construction... http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=412120