Another Z to see the roads again...

[ETI4K]

The motor is on hold for the time being until I get the rest of the parts from the machine shop.  Decided to go with a replacement head since a good one became available.  Thanks @madkaw
Got some work done on the replacement floor pans.  Decided to remove the driver's side hump in the tunnel.  I still have to make and weld in new sections for the reinforced rear corners, but it's mostly down to blending the welds, a little flattening, and then get the floor supports in. 

[ETI4K]

I also decided to pull the guards for the seat belt pockets.  They weren't rusted, just beat up a bit.I haven't quite finished them yet.  Still polishing off weld-fills for the drilled out spot welds.  I will locate new holes for plug welding that are not at the edge of the parts as many of these spots were.

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by ETI4K
Added wrong pic

[ETI4K]

Some 'along the way' pics of the floor pan op.  No sense of chronology, of course.

 

[grannyknot]

Nice work, those seat belt pockets are usually a magnet for rust, you got lucky.

[ETI4K]

Don't forget, it's been off the road and bone dry for about 24 years.  Can't even imagine if it had been a driver for all that time!

[ETI4K]

I'm considering fabricating new seat supports. 

Mine are not damaged by rust, but between work done a long time ago (they were removed and welded back in), getting them out this time, and now having removed the driver side hump, getting them to look decent would be a bit tricky.

What's nice about them is they are lightweight and strong.  I can't form sheet metal to achieve that, so my design would have to be based on available shapes - tubes, angles, etc.  The real loads to worry about would be shearing forces on the welds and bending moments on the pedestals during rapid acceleration events.  I suppose during rapid deceleration the seat belts are doing the bulk of the work.  Other than that, they just have to keep me off the floor.  A rough idea of what I am thinking, attached.

If anyone has designs or pics of something they've done, it'd be great to see them. 

Seat Mount Bracket.bmp

[ETI4K]

It's amazing how long it takes to get something done. 

I've essentially finished the floor pans and the fit up of the floor supports.  I still have a lot of weld blending before I can say they're finished-finished-done.  Before I burn the support rails into place, I have to rebuild the frame connectors and then tie it all together. I keep trying to give myself a path backwards in case I find a major, uh-oh! so my weld progress is somewhat strategic.

I cut out a bit of solid metal that was part of previous repairs just to reduce the number of joints needing welding, and grinding, and flattening, and blending, and...  So now, I have some funky looking patches that had to be made, but will disappear eventually.

Yesterday, I cleaned the inside surfaces of the floor supports with muriatic acid.  Wow, that stuff is fast and thorough.  Removed oil, dirt, and all the weld oxidation/burn that would be impossible to get to with a wire wheel or even media blasting (no pics).  Then I coated the interior surfaces with ZRC.  At some point down the road I will access every hidden cavity I can and shoot ZRC everywhere, then cavity wax. 

What I am trying to do now is reinforce the interior space of the frame connector and floor support area.  I always try to work with material I have on hand first - and that happens to be 1/4 plate.  The idea behind it is the flat bottom will take any direct hit to the frame rail (and be adequate to prevent denting of the bottom surface of the frame rail).  The load from the hit will pass through the vertical sides upwards to the flat top portion which will spread out the load reducing the stress on the floor sheet metal and avoiding and  deformation.  Up. To. A. Limit.  When I install the internal supports I will not weld them as I don't want a large surface area that can't be coated to prevent rusting, so I will probably set them with epoxy.  The epoxy will provide 100% contact between the support and the sheet metal below.  This should make it very difficult to deform the floor support/connectors.  It's a plan anyway.

[ETI4K]

Forgot to add this...Frame Support Concept.pdf

Frame Support Concept.pdf

[ETI4K]

Started work on the frame supports.  Started with paper templates on the steel.  That's when it dawned on me it would take a lot of shaping to get the fit tight.

Made from a 1/4 thick ell that I cut into two.

 

Had to change the implementation somewhat.  Since the floor pans are not perfectly flat in that region, I decided to make several smaller pieces on the topside rather use one large piece.  This enabled me to follow the contours of the floor much better, but also reduces the contact area between the supports and floor pans.   I specifically located one piece under the floor pan/lower dash union - only because my car had some good whacks on that location which took a lot of hammer work to make right.

 

 

After welding, it still took a bit of shaping to get a very tight fit inside the frame connectors/floor supports.  When I was finally happy with them, they spent a few minutes in the wet blast cabinet, then I painted them in ZRC.  After two days to cure, I realized I had missed a spot inside the support.  Two more day's wait, ready to go in.  Good thing there's always plenty to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by ETI4K

[ETI4K]

I need to learn how to manage picture uploads.

[ETI4K]

A little out of order here.  Had to piece together the frame connectors before I made the frame internal supports. 

  

Nothing fancy - just cut and paste.  Of course, all the weld penetrations had to be removed so as not to interfere with the internal supports I was adding.

Since the original frame connectors were essentially gone (from previous work), I had to choose the slope of the forward portion.  I extended a straight line from the floor support rails and then used the remaining inch or so of the sloped portion to figure out where the two planes should meet.

 

Edited June 5, 2021 by ETI4K

[ETI4K]

I didn't really like the way the Zeddfinding's floor support terminated at the rear, especially since the vertical flanges (sides of the rail) were drawn together making the rear section narrower than the rest, so I modified it.  Cut the welds with the thinnest cut-off wheel and tacked it back together where they should be.  Then just made a new piece to look like a flange.

Then just drilled some holes around the supports and plug welded them in place.

 

The floor supports have flash rust because I used muriatic acid to clean the insides before treating for corrosion protection.  I'm telling you, that stuff is amazing at removing rust...and oil...and anything else I guess that might keep metal reasonably well protected while you're working on it.