Question for body guys about entire floor/frame assemblies

[bobs73challenger]

Hi everyone,

I'm not quite getting into the metal part of my 73 challenger yet, but I'm trying to plan it out the best I can.

So, I need a trunk floor.  And the under the seat floor.  And while I'm in there, probably the rest of the floor. 

I also happen to have some rust in my frame rails.  Not a ton, they MIGHT be able to be patched, but I'm considering outright replacement.

Has anybody used the all in one assembles that folks like Dave at Roseville sells?  Looks like I can get outfits from 1400-3k depending on just how much I need. 

I was wondering, from an installation end (hours required), is it easier to bring a whole assembly to a body guy or the individual parts?  I can certainly see advantages to using the one piece assembly, but what (if any) drawbacks are there?

I won't be doing the work myself (I don't own a MIG nor do I think I could quickly pick up the skills to rework the bottom of my entire car.

I haven't gotten the car to a body guy for a quote on anything yet, I'm just going by the holes and the rust I see when I look up from under the car.  It's got more rust than I initially thought.  But I still got a great deal on it, so it worth putting some money into it.  How much "some" ends up being is another issue for another time. 

Thanks in advance for the help!

--Bob

[Edison1970]

If you can, post a picture of what you have.  If you can, try to save as much factory steel as you can.  If the back half of the floor pan is still good, don't replace it. 

[Challenger6pak]

This guy should know.

http://www.forebodiesonly.com/forum/showthread.php?7520-1970-challenger-convertible

[72bluNblu]

Pictures would be good. If it really needs the entire floor and frame rails replaced the bill for sheet metal and labor could quickly get past $10k. Keep in mind that parts are the cheap part, labor will be the bigger part of the bill.

[hemiken]

If you are talking about replacing your entire floors from fron to back and also the frame rails, you are going to need access to a frame jig to make thing exactly correct, in saying that, if you can buy a complete floor that has been put together on a frame jig and buy it as a whole unit finished, this is a huge headstart in anyones book, you are still going to need to put the car on some kind of chassis jig to get everything in to proportion and fitting correctly, you can do it without a jig, but it will be that much harder to get the best results.
I hope this is what you were asking because if you wanted to replace section by section, it will be a lot harder but still totally doable, the fact panels overlap sometimes helps and sometimes hinders the piecing back of the panels in correct order of reoval, you can sit down and study how the panels were applied and figure out the way each part would have been applied and effected by the panel it is joined to.

Man , now i am confusing myself............. good luck and keep asking as you decide what way you want to proceed with

[torredcuda]

I wasn`t awarethey sold assemblies, any pics?

[bobs73challenger]

Sure, here are a couple of pics from Roseville's website.  I hope Dave doesn't mind me posting them.  I went to their website and searched for "Frame Rails" and these are in the results.  I'll crawl under the car this weekend and take a few pics of what I have to work with.

Thank you everyone for your help and encouragement so far! 

[torredcuda]

I think the assembly is a nice way to go but the challenge is to get it into the car in one piece. As hemiken said there are a lot of overlapping parts and I`m not even sure the it would fit in without removing the wheelwells, tail panel and more.

[jimynick]

As mentioned, it boils down to what is required to repair the car. There's no doubt that the pre-welded/assembled assemblies are the way to go, BUT, as also mentioned, they require major surgery. If it's just the trunk and rear rails/floor you could probably get it in by removing at least one of the inner wheel wells and rear body panel and coming in from underneath. All the panels are available separately, but then there's the cutting/fitting aspect there as well. This is not a job for the faint of heart and your body guy had best be up for it. Good luck. 

[hemiken]

As torredcuda and jimynick stated, this is pretty involved. What you have pictured of the complete floor all in one piece like it is, is an awesome thing, think of this as the start and this would be the foundation to your entire build process, everything you put back on has to start with the floor, so in retrospec, you would have to un pick your entire rear quarter panels off the car to gain access to install the floor, actually start with the floor on a jig or secured in a way that it will not move when assembly is happening of the other panels.
You could pick the car apart so each side of the car comes off in one entire piece, do the same to the other side and put everything back as assemblies, the problem is that all this has to be done to get that huge floor section to physically get past all the other panels, that is why the floor is the starting block for everything.