Floor/Firewall seam

[BigFlo]

I'll be replacing the floor on my 65 Belvedere and I've been removing the spot welds and have worked my way from the rear seat area up to the firewall. I expected to see more spotwelds along the firewall-to-floor seam but don't see any. I've searched through this site for how to separate this seam and didn't find any tips. How did the factory attache the two and what's the best way to get them apart? Should I use a hammer and seam splitter?

 

[Dodge33]

I'll be replacing the floor on my 65 Belvedere and I've been removing the spot welds and have worked my way from the rear seat area up to the firewall. I expected to see more spotwelds along the firewall-to-floor seam but don't see any. I've searched through this site for how to separate this seam and didn't find any tips. How did the factory attache the two and what's the best way to get them apart? Should I use a hammer and seam splitter?

You will have to view them from the engine bay side/ and from under the
inner fender well side's...... of course the engine/tran's and probably frt. fender's will need removed also. Being careful with your hand/finger's, run some sandpaper down the entire seam, and all the spotweld's will be visable to you. If you try and split
the two seam's apart, without drilling the spotweld's, you will have a destroyed lower firewall:angry1:!! You may fix it, but with many hour's with a hammer and dolly. Good Luck. J & J

 

[BigFlo]

I got underneath and looked today. Some of the seam is covered in undercoating which is maybe why I missed the spotwelds before. So what's easier to do now......
.....drill through both weld layers of the lip on the seam and then when the new floor is in, the holes will be on the firewall side which allows you to weld the floor from the topside.....
....or remove the spotwelds from the floor side of the seam without going thru the firewall, which means I would need to drill holes in the new floor to weld to the firrewall, which means I weld from underneath.
The car is not on a rotisserrie.

 

[Dodge33]

Firewall Seam

I got underneath and looked today. Some of the seam is covered in undercoating which is maybe why I missed the spotwelds before. So what's easier to do now......
.....drill through both weld layers of the lip on the seam and then when the new floor is in, the holes will be on the firewall side which allows you to weld the floor from the topside.....
....or remove the spotwelds from the floor side of the seam without going thru the firewall, which means I would need to drill holes in the new floor to weld to the firrewall, which means I weld from underneath.
The car is not on a rotisserrie.[/QUOTE

Drill the spotweld's from the top/engine side....... we personally do not drill all the way through both piece's, and here is the reason why....... if you drill the spotweld just through the top layer,you still have the underneath metal to support the cutter when drilling next to it, then carefully try to split the two layer's of metal, if it don't want to, then the weld is maybe just a little wider in size, either move the spotweld cutter to the left or right of you about
1/2 cutter width or so, spotweld also could be up or down from your first spotweld cut. Some of your spotweld's may need to be welded up first, if
there are way to many hole's in the firewall seam. You can weld up some
of the hole's by using a piece of copper metal or go buy a welding spoon
for a backer to fill the extra hole's if there are any. Wire welding will not stick
to non-ferrous metal's. Good Luck.