How to Replace a Camaro Floor

Restoring a car means that you have to dig into every aspect of the vehicle, repairing and refinishing every part until it's brand new. Muscle cars have seen a surge in popularity recently, and more people are digging into old cars and trying to restore them to their former glory. One of the more common tasks to do is replacing the floor pan. This is not an easy task and takes a good amount of time to do properly, but if it's done right, the car is that much closer to being perfectly restored. In this case, the vehicle is the popular 1969 Camaro, but the process is the same for other year Camaros as well.

Instructions

1

Open both doors and locate the section of floor that you want to replace. It's possible to replace the entire floor if need be, but you can also just replace panels or sections depending on how bad the damage is.

2

Place the replacement sheet metal panel on top of the damaged panel and mark the perimeter of the replacement panel using the permanent marker. This is going to show you where you need to cut and/or remove.

3

Locate the spot welds that secure the floor to the underlying crossmembers. These are circular dents in the sheet metal that are factory welds, so don't have a raised look as another weld would have.

4

Drill out the spot welds using the drill and spot weld cutter. This can be frustrating, and you may need to cut the piece out directly with the angle grinder and cut-off wheel, or with the air chisel powered by the air compressor. You want to make sure that the replacement panel will overlay old sheet metal by about 1 inch or so, to provide for a solid welding surface. This means you may have to cut inside of the marks you made previously, depending on the placement of the spot welds.

5

Punch holes in the perimeter of the replacement panel using the pneumatic punch. You want a hole every 4 inches or so, as these will be spots where you'll be welding.

6

Place the replacement panel into the car, and align it using the marks you made previously and any marks from previous spot welds. Clamp the sheet metal to the car using the vice grips.

7

Weld the replacement panel to the floor pan using the MIG welder, welding helmet and welding gloves. You're welding the holes that you made with the punch to the floor pan, creating a plug weld that is extremely strong. Just weld the surface enough to fill the hole, no further.

8

Spray the replacement panel with the rubberized undercoating. This will protect the panel from rust and will also provide a small amount of sound deadening.

9

Repeat the process for other holes in the floor.