• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Floor replacement and Media blasting

BigFlo

Well-Known Member
Local time
1:48 AM
Joined
Mar 28, 2011
Messages
586
Reaction score
694
Location
NJ
So I'm getting ready to replace my floor pans and trunk floor on my 65 Belvedere. I've never done this before and I have a couple questions. I've read enough about the actual steps needed to cutout and replace/weld the new floor back in place, so I'm not looking for that kind of advice.
This is not going to be a show car and the orignal car is nothing of special value, so I'm not concerned with keeping it exactly original.

-I want to blast/clean off the factory undercoating from the underbody and frame and firewall, in the areas that will not be replaced with new sheetmetal. Should that be done before or after the new floors are in place? Does it matter or is it personal preference?

-My trunk floor is OK except in the center well area. I have several options:
1) replace only the center area with a piece of sheetmetal. That would seem hard to form properly, to get the right fit - especially around the gas tank filler tube area. The bottom of the original floor is fluted also, which a flat piece of sheetmetal would not have. I assume that the fluted area is there to add rigidity to the area?
2) Buy a replacement floor panel and cut out the center well area and weld it into the old floor. It seems like a waste to buy an entire new floor and cut it up!
3) replace the entire floor but that seems like a lot more work.
Thoughts?
Note that I will need to replace the trunk extensions and lower quarter patches on both sides at some point also.

-Does anyone know of a good, reasonably priced place in NJ or Eastern PA that does Mediablasting?
 
hey bigflo
you are not that far from me
anyway to answer some of your questions

I want to blast/clean off the factory undercoating from the underbody and frame and firewall, in the areas that will not be replaced with new sheetmetal. Should that be done before or after the new floors are in place? Does it matter or is it personal preference?

it doesn't matter,do it how you like.
i like to do sections at a time and i clean around
the area's i'm going to work on first.
that way if i get hung up or pulled away somewhere else
i do not have to worry about
a large area being exposed and being left alone.
i do this as a hobby in my spare time so life gets in the way alot.

trunk floor?
number 3
do the floor as a whole pan
if you think about it
it is not much more work to do the whole thing
and your results will end up 100% better in the end
heck,the extensions have to be replaced anyway so you are still messing with
alot of that pan even if you do patch in the center.
to me its alot easier just to do the whole thing,then patching it up
i have ripped out many pans myself in a couple of hours
it doesn't take that long once you
start poping welds and get in the groove
so to me most if not all of the time
i do the full pan,unless i only have a patch to install.

Does anyone know of a good, reasonably priced place in NJ or Eastern PA that does Mediablasting?

good luck with finding that! haha
most want around 1.5 to 2k to do it
and then you also have to worry that the person doing it has a clue
because it is very easy to warp sheetmetal when blasting and ruin it.

for undercoating i try to take most off with a heatgun and scraper
and clean it up with a solvent before i will blast it
that undercoating is very tough and it is very slow going blasting.
much easier to get off as much as you can before trying to blast it.

i went and got my own pressure pot and do it myself
it probaby costs me around 4-5 hundred in media to do a whole car.
i tend not to blast the outer flat sheetmetal surfaces
and do them with chemicals/da so i have no chance to warp it.
if you are doing heavy rust it will slow you down alot also.
the nooks crannies and rails and inside and under i blast away.
its a messy dirty nasty very slow job unless you have equipment
that costs alot of money
so be prepared for it if
you decide to do it yourself.
good luck with the project!
 
Auto Transport Service
Back
Top