AMD Floor Pan Quality and Fitment Concerns

[quagmire]

May I make a suggestion here? I wouldn't section the rockers in. Think about it, if the panel is rotten enough in that spot to replace it, how far behind could the rest of it be and what a giant PITA to do that only to see it "blossom" 6 months or a year later! Put the whole thing in and that'll also give you an opportunity to "tune" the door/rocker gap in a way that the factory never succeeded in. Good luck! 

Good call - I totally agree with that.  I have a bit of OCD so every speck of surface rust in the interior or untouched seam in unknown condition eats at me. 

I'm onto the firewall and cowl now.  Kinda scary looking at this shell wondering if it'll ever be back together!  I welded in reinforcements and took a bunch of measurements, and it doesn't seem to have moved even a bit.  The firewall fit isn't too bad, but the cowl will need a bit more work.  The lower seam doesn't match the firewall too well and it almost seems like the tabs on the sides are too far apart.  The windshield gutter needs to be bent down to fit the reinforcements and channel well too. 

Right now, I'm waiting on cowl side panels because they rotted about as bad as the firewall they were welded to.  The inner ones with the hinges seem to be ok - so far!

['Cuda Hunter]

are you welding your original serial number stamp back into the new cowl?

[quagmire]

Yes, I am going to - not that it means much given how little is original on this car and it was never a sought after model, LOL.  On a side note, whoever stamped the core support did it right through some of the holes in it.  Must have been built on the Monday after the Superbowl back in the day!

[jimynick]

Coming along! If you haven'y welded the cowl top on yet, I'd apply some seam sealer around the 2 stand-up edges of the vent tubes. Mine were spot-welded in but you could see where if it saw a lot of water, that it might leak into the interior, and that's a PITA you don't need. 

[quagmire]

Yeah, I noticed the replacement one isn't sealed at all and has some pretty big gaps to leak.  Most of these panels have some kind of white sealer in between them and it looks like it was spot welded through the sealer.  It wasn't the same stuff liberally slathered over some of the joints.

I've noticed it on the cowl upper and lower seams, outer hinge panel front and rear seams, and other areas.  What is everyone using as a substitute?  I didn't realize they had weld through seam sealers back then!

I'm thinking of panel bonding and spot welding through the seams that I can get a cheapo spot welder in to seal them 100%, but not sure what to do with the others.  I was planning on doing this to the bottom seam where the inner and outer rocker meet too since it's easy to get a spot welder in there since weld through primer only seems to be iffy in terms of sealing the joint and that is one area with high potential to get wet.

I haven't seen a seam sealer or adhesive where they recommend MIG welding through yet.

[quagmire]

Now I'm in the process of replacing the outer hinge panels.  More fitment fun ahead!  For starters, they welded one of the cage nuts on the wrong side of the panel.  Not the end of the world.... 

I am running into an issue with door jamb seam though.  The notches do not line up at all and the bend radius is wrong throughout?  Any suggestions on how to fix this?  Should I cut out that section and form a new channel with a shrinker/stretcher?

The panels have  these funky bends in them too that were intentionally done - I'm not sure why but it causes the panel to fit like crap.  I'm going to have to get creative with clamps and a BFH to make it work.

I don't know how you guys do this stuff!  The only positive here is that the portion that joins the firewall seems to fit ok.