AMD Floor Pan Quality and Fitment Concerns

[quagmire]

This is my first go at body work and it's a real blast so far.  Not really....  I'm having issues with the AMD front and rear floor pans not meeting up well at all.  My driver side floors were destroyed and not reusable, but I'm almost positive the issue is the front section; the rear section is far from perfect but matches the OE panel closely in the area with the gap.  Note:  this car is square (I checked) and the rockers and most all sheet metal except a quarter skin are original.  I had issues with the replacement floor brackets fitting like garbage (OE ones are too far gone to reuse) and the firewall seam as well.  Has anyone seen this before, and what should I do to fix it?

[70chall440]

Ive not had these issues, however I can say that these cars were far from perfect when new and the cars I have put pans in always needed some "massaging" to get new panels to fit. Call up AMD and send them the pictures and see what they say. They actually install their stuff in their resto shop.

[quagmire]

Will do.  Looking at the side by side pics and old floor some more, there is definitely a big difference in the bend radius of that hump between new and old.  You can see it clearly in the bottom left corner of each.  Hopefully I can correct this without starting all over.

[jimynick]

May I suggest that your first error was to weld in the first pan before determining the final fit between the two of them? Now that the first one is welded, all the adjusting will have to be done on the second one. I see the discrepancy at the sides and would suggest seeing if you can work the welded one's rolled edge in toward the second pan a bit. This might require a piece of 2X4 and a BFH and a judicious application of armstrong; don't go crazy. Then you could take a short piece of say 1.5" pipe and laying it inside the rolled edge of the second panel, use the BFH on it to roll over the too-narrow edge with an eye to getting them to come close enough together to clamp them and then massage them together to get them to lie closer so that you can weld them together. Split the difference if there's two sides that need work and temporarily clamp/holdown the panel as you do your "massaging" so that it doesn't just pull all over to one side. Like I said, easier to do if it weren't already half installed. Good luck. 

[70chall440]

May I suggest that your first error was to weld in the first pan before determining the final fit between the two of them? Now that the first one is welded, all the adjusting will have to be done on the second one. I see the discrepancy at the sides and would suggest seeing if you can work the welded one's rolled edge in toward the second pan a bit. This might require a piece of 2X4 and a BFH and a judicious application of armstrong; don't go crazy. Then you could take a short piece of say 1.5" pipe and laying it inside the rolled edge of the second panel, use the BFH on it to roll over the too-narrow edge with an eye to getting them to come close enough together to clamp them and then massage them together to get them to lie closer so that you can weld them together. Split the difference if there's two sides that need work and temporarily clamp/holdown the panel as you do your "massaging" so that it doesn't just pull all over to one side. Like I said, easier to do if it weren't already half installed. Good luck. 

Outstanding advice 

[quagmire]

May I suggest that your first error was to weld in the first pan before determining the final fit between the two of them? Now that the first one is welded, all the adjusting will have to be done on the second one. I see the discrepancy at the sides and would suggest seeing if you can work the welded one's rolled edge in toward the second pan a bit. This might require a piece of 2X4 and a BFH and a judicious application of armstrong; don't go crazy. Then you could take a short piece of say 1.5" pipe and laying it inside the rolled edge of the second panel, use the BFH on it to roll over the too-narrow edge with an eye to getting them to come close enough together to clamp them and then massage them together to get them to lie closer so that you can weld them together. Split the difference if there's two sides that need work and temporarily clamp/holdown the panel as you do your "massaging" so that it doesn't just pull all over to one side. Like I said, easier to do if it weren't already half installed. Good luck. 

Yeah, trust me, I will NOT make that mistake again.  Initially, I did not have both parts for mock up, and I incorrectly ASSumed that an AMD front pan would mate correctly with an AMD rear pan.  Guess not!  Depending on what AMD says, I will likely have to resort to "pursuading" it as you suggested.

[70chall440]

Very few if any "drop in", despite the car being square there are many years of twists and strain on it and they were not precisely engineered to begin with.

[quagmire]

Very few if any "drop in", despite the car being square there are many years of twists and strain on it and they were not precisely engineered to begin with.

No doubt!  The panel to car fitment isn't the current issue though; it's the panel to panel fitment.  And if I had checked before install I'm sure I would have seen and caught it.  Live and learn....  I have plenty of other panel work to do on this heap, so I will definitely be checking all of the replacement parts closer.  I will need to repair or replace the inner fenders due to rot in the hinge area along with at least sectioning out a decent part of the firewall on the driver side.  There must have been a water leak or something on that side because the passenger side is extremely clean in comparison.

I'll be doing a trunk pan and extensions as well along with a USCartool reinforcement kit.  After that, I'll most likely be handing it off for exterior metal work.  I am cool with structural metal and the parts you cannot easily see, but am squeamish about doing anything with the welded exterior panels like the quarters.

[70chall440]

I hear you, but I will say you are doing good work. When I did my Challenger and my Cuda I found that I had to make a lot of compromises with regards to all of the panels. On the Cuda I did almost everything (2 interior panels, full trunk floor, inner/outer wheel houses, quarter panels, tail panel, etc.) and I learned some hard lessons along the way. Perhaps my biggest epiphany was/is how these cars were put together when new; some places have 1 or 2 spot welds and others have 6-8 with no reason to justify either. I finally got to the point where I made things fit as I felt they should be (or could be). the quarter panels were actually easier then some of the other panels. 

[jimynick]

   Yep, what the man said X2! You'll end up with a nice collection of vice-grips and Clecos. AND, if you can do this stuff, you can do any of it, so don't hide your light under a bushel and get at 'er! 

[quagmire]

Update:  I never heard back from AMD so I formed it myself with a BFH and some dollies. It fits perfect now!  Naturally, I ran out of MIG gas so I have to wait until next weekend to weld the darn rear floor in.

After pulling my hair out trying to figure out why my USCT subframe connectors fit so poorly I checked the part number etched into them and found out that they accidentally shipped me ones for an early A-Body!  Sure explains a lot!  Hopefully they get back to me and handle this better than AMD did.  I have plenty of other tear down including powertrain removal to keep me busy though.

It also looks like I'll be doing the RH rear floor and at least sectioning outer rockers on both sides and the inner on the RH side.  I'm sure I'll discover other surprises.  Thanks for all of the advice on resolving my fitment issue!

[jimynick]

You're welcome and here's a wee bit more. I put the USCT subframe connectors in my Challenger and while they're semi, quasi, kinda, sorta close; they required a fair bit of "massaging". I'd hold them up against the floor and mark the high spots with a Sharpie and then grind those spots off and do that about 8 times to where they fit flush enough to the floor to mig them in. Trial and error should be their byword! LOL Glad to hear you wrangled the floor into submission, too! 

[70chall440]

You're welcome and here's a wee bit more. I put the USCT subframe connectors in my Challenger and while they're semi, quasi, kinda, sorta close; they required a fair bit of "massaging". I'd hold them up against the floor and mark the high spots with a Sharpie and then grind those spots off and do that about 8 times to where they fit flush enough to the floor to mig them in. Trial and error should be their byword! LOL Glad to hear you wrangled the floor into submission, too! 

 

[jimynick]

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! 

[70chall440]

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!