911 floor pans

[pauldvern]

Hi all,


I have finally got to the metalwork on my '69T project. Anyone had any good/bad experiences with the panels that are available out there. One piece full floor or two piece combo?


Cheers


Paul

IMG_2241-min.jpg

[Loz]

I replaced the rear half from Restoration Design.
Nice quality and a good fit.

[911hillclimber]

I've never done a whole floor.
In 1988 there were no aftermarket panels when I did my 911 floor edges, one side at a time and checking the shell stays straight.
A whole floor I feel would need a cellettee jig to get it in flat and straight and the 'hollow' body attached correctly.

1/2 floor at a time would be my way

Maybe Gary71 will come along soon and share his thoughts.

[desert rat]

Had a whole floor RHD replaced from Dansk on a cellette jig. Everything fitted okay. Maybe I was lucky.

[pauldvern]

I think if your sills and roof etc are solid (as mine are) it’s ok to do this without a table jig. Restoration design have videos of them doing just that with a shell in one of there octagon rollover jigs same at the one I’ve built. Obviously you need to check you measurements!

[911hillclimber]

Agree, and easy to 'weld-in' a twist to the shell.

"Measure 5 times, weld once".

[Gary71]

Did mine on a rollover jig using the restoration design panels.

I measured everything about a million times before I cut the old one out (in stages) then after doing all the other repairs (lots!) finally put the new one in after welding the two halves together.

I screwed it in place first and rolled the car over a few times to see if the shell moved (it didn’t!)

It was part of a massive task involving rebuilding all the floor flanges, sill edges, seat mounts, lower A pillars, then dry building together with the inner & outer sills, jacking points etc.

Give me a bit of PTSD thinking about it

This was the first stage, lots of repairs to the flanges, the panels (complex!) under the torsion bar and heater tube. I fitted the rear panel in lots of times with self tappers. Overlapping the part of the floor that’s still in place. Then moved onto the other side.



Did this repair both sides under the A pillar. Such fun.




This was one of the most difficult parts. Blending the new floor into the old one under the bulkhead and repairing the tunnel sides.

Then having screwed the whole car together including new sills and marking the two sections I butt welded the halves together with some heavy steel bars clamping the flat sheets straight.



Then a million plug welds. Losing the will to live by now



All done!



So possible DIY but be prepared for what you’ll find underneath and dry build everything!

[Gary71]

Best of luck, happy to talk it through.

This ^ was 8 months of weekends…

[Gary71]

And I should mention that the inner and outer sills, rear crossmember, quarters etc were only screwed on at this point.

As the shell was heading down to metal meister Barry Carter to do the big repair to the other side of the torsion tube and final fit the exterior panels he wanted to make sure it was still sufficiently flexible to allow tweaking if needed.

As it was it dropped straight onto the jig!

[pauldvern]

Thanks for that Gary, luckily I don’t have to replace my sills. The car was left outside for many years so only rotted where rain water could sit after leaking through the window seals. So much less rotten than my splitscreen bus! So you were happy with the 2 piece restoration design floor? It’s probably a toss up between that and the one piece Dansk. The advantage of the Dansk is that can collect one from VW heritage up the road from me but it is more expensive.

[Gary71]

Sounds positive

If the water hasn’t got into the complex bits then hopefully it’s a much easier job. Just lots of spotwelds to drill out!

If your are trying to preserve the areas under the sill (if it’s not rotted) then I’d consider only using the central section and making a join along the flange that forms the perimeter inside the car.

Otherwise by the time you’ve drilled out the welds on the vertical sill flanges they will be a bit rough.

Cut just above the poorly drawn red line!


Air saw roughly where the red line is then remove the extra bit to the middle of the flange. Cut the new panel in to match and seam weld down the line. Will be so much easier with the flange the other side!

[Gary71]

I was happy with the Restoration Design panels, I bought a whole load in one go though so it made sense (and discount!) getting all in one place.

It would give you the chance to do front and back separately then make the final join on the car which will keep things super straight

[pauldvern]

I’m not a big fan of drilling spot welds. If I need to preserve an edge I tend to grind down the unwanted side so it’s really thin and peel it back rolling with pliers. Did you buy your panels direct from RD in the EU or from a U.K. supplier?

[Gary71]

Good plan on the grinding. Think I just got fed up with the noise

I bought direct, but this was in the time before Brexit kicked in hard so didn’t have to worry about duties or anything. Not sure how it works now. Other than the black bits this was all the RD panels. Ended up buying OE outer sills instead on Barry’s advice as the pressing was better.

[RobFrost]

I used the cheaper one from design 911, in separate front and back parts because a good part of my floor was fine and i wanted to keep as much of the original as possible

It did the job but i think I'd have saved myself a good £500 worth of labour with the more expensive panel.

The rigidity pressings into the pan are a bit less crisp. But most of all, one of the side lips was folded at the wrong place so I had to flatten it out and fold it in the right place.

A lot of the work is in repairing the inner sills and tunnel where they drop down onto the floor.

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