Trunk floor pan question. 68-72 skylark the same?

My 72 convertible needs a trunk floor pan. I have a 68 with a perfect one. Are they the same?

 

Look it up on www.shermanparts.com
if 68-9 has the same part number as 70-2 then you are set

 

Thanks George.

68-72. I'm a happy guy. Now, to do some cutting.

 

The area over the rear axles is different so don't cut out that section.
Duane

 

I love it when learning something so early in the morning.:3gears:

 

All the trunk pans I have seen do not go near the area over the rear axle.....as shown in my article:

http://www.buickperformance.com/TrunkPan.htm

 

They do no sell the ENTIRE one piece trunk floor sections that have the correct contours where Duane says. 71-72 is specific and you can buy it from www.ss396.com and other places. They look much better than the old multi piece jobs. The only thing I see that is different in their picture is the far rear but maybe your old one can be grafted to the new one. They show good pictures on that site. The holes for the wiring in the rear look to be in different places.

 

Here is a direct link to the 71-72 one piece floor

http://www.ss396.com/mm5/merchant.m...Product_Code=RTF-171&Category_Code=TRUNKFLOOR

 

I am just doing the bottom of the floor. There is not much left of it on the convertible.

 

Dave,
The pic you posted a link to is for the 71-72 trunk pan. It is made by Dynacorn and they also make the 68 thru 70 styles.

They are beautiful parts, have all the braces installed, drop in to all the factory weld lines, and look just like the original trunk pans.

I just finished putting one in my 70 Chevelle conv, and you are right, they are identical to the buick/olds trunks except for the area behind the rear brace.

Like you said, I would bet you could buy one of these and trim it to just overlap the Buick rear brace. Then from under the car the seam would not be visible, and with a little filler the top would be perfect. It would be an easy fix.

Here is the link to the 70 trunk pan
http://eastcoastchevelle.com/productimages/Sheet Metal_1177510344.jpg
Duane

 

Duane, This may be the route I take. I do not know why anyone would want to bother with all the parts with the multi piece types...Mark you could just cut and use what you need.

 

"I do not know why anyone would want to bother with all the parts with the multi piece types"

Until recently these assemblies were not available, but it all depends on the amount of damage the car has. On my 70 442 only the trunk floor surface had damage. So I cut one out of a 70 skylark and welded the floor to the original braces like carmantx is going to do.

My Chevelle had major rot back there, so the new 1 piece units were the way to go. (The first pic shows the installed trunk pan. The second pic shows the car with the replaced floor pans (out of another car), new rear seat area and new trunk installed. The bracing was removed as it was no longer needed to hold the car together.)

Dynacorn is gearing up to make complete Chevelle coupe and convertible bodies. That is why the full trunks became available.

They are also planing to offer coupe bodies without the dash, rear tulip panel, rear quarters/outer wheel houses. That way it would be easy to build it into a GS or 442, or GTO. I believe you would order it as an AC or non-AC car and drill the appropriate holes in the firewall.
Duane

 

Here is how I put the trunk floor in my 70 442 conv and what I believe carmantx wants to do to his car.

I trimmed the donor pan so it overlapped the rear brace, welded the pan to the original trunk braces and butt welded it along the front. Once the welds were ground down the repair virtually disappeared.

The donor pan came from a 70 Skylark 4-door.
Enjoy.
Duane

 

Jon,
That 1/2" overlap is exactly what the flanging tool does for me.....no need to do butt welds...those take more time and critical cutting to be purrrrrfect.

So, with a flange as I have stated in the article....you can lay in the 1-piece pan I used and it will fit flush. I then welded all the Cleco holes shut and skip welded the edges....about every 2-3 inches....this made for a stable trunk pan....use a 4" grinder to grind all the welds smooth.

Cleaned all areas with wire brush followed by lacquer thinner.......use a 4" wide body filler squeegee after you lay a 1/4-3/8" wide polyurethane bead and it will be silky smooth. Next I spray rubberized undercoating on the entire trunk area for my base coat......then go to NAPA and get their black & aqua trunk splatter paint....takes 3-4 cans....and you are done!

 

Duane, did you drill out all the spot welds, and leave the middle (tank?) braces in place also?

I was thinking about just cutting with a wheel and sawzall, but drilling out the spot welds may be the best way to go.

Keep in mind. I am not a body guy at all. This is the first car I have done anything to the body on. I have had the desire to learn though. I was just out looking at some of the cars I have cut up to see what all is needed and how I was going to cut. I notice at the back of the trunk, is the "pan" only goes up a few inches and then it runs in to the section that bolts to the rear frame area.

 

Mark,
This is what I did on the Olds (and I did it all with just a cut-off wheel and a 4 1/2' Angle Grinder)
The first thing I did was to verify that the braces were good on the car. (Which they were)

Then I marked where to cut out the bad part of the pan and made sure my donor piece was larger then that.

Next I cut out access areas of the trunk, between the braces, and carefully cut the floor pan across the front and back of each brace without cutting too deeply. (You don't want to cut into the braces.)

If you notice the braces are spot welded to the trunk down both sides of the brace. You will find out that it is much easier to remove spot welds in a series of straight lines, so the next step is to carefully cut down the middle of each brace. (thru the sheetmetal only) This gives you a long thin piece with only 1 spotweld to deal with at a time, instead of having a series of welds next to each other.

Then I use my angle grinder to grind the trunk pan off each spot weld and go down the line until the piece is freed. Then you repeat the process for the other side of the brace and you end up with a solid brace with no holes.

Once the old rusty metal is off the car you then turn to the donor piece. Here I drill the spot welds completely out. I usually drill a small pilot hole in each weld and then go back with a step drill to finish the job. You will have to decide if you want to overlap the edges vs butt weld them. (If you look closely at my pic of the donor pan you can see the holes drilled into it where I removed the spot welds.)

By this method you end up with solid braces (on the car) and a series of holes drilled thru the donor pan that are ready to be mig-welded. Once they are welded together and ground down, the bottom of the car will look un-touched.

I try to place my welds over existing braces or at original weld joints wherever possible. It might take me longer to do it this way, but my goal is to not look like I have been there once the job is finished. Plus I don't have all the tools the body guys have, so I need to make do with what I have.

If you look under my 70 Olds, or 70 Chevelle when finished, you will not see where I replaced a single piece of sheetmetal. And by leaving the braces intact they all look like they have factory spot welds. Of course if you take out the carpet you will see everything.:laugh:
Duane

PS. Here is a pic of the "intact" trunk braces on the car.

 

Great help guys, thanks again.

I am thinking I will overlap a little. that's what I did on the small floor pan patch. Tyler did a great job welding around that for me.

So Duane, from the donor car, do you just cut all the braces and all out, and then drill out the spot welds? Seems like that would be easier.

I can also see some rust at the inner wheel well where the trunk pan meets up to the inner well. Seems like I should patch that at this time too?

 

I didn't see where you said anything about the flange tool. I guess you mentioned the punch /panel flanger but didn't really show or talk about doing it.
Thanks for the extra input, that job is the first thing I need to do to my 67 skylark.

 

"...from the donor car, do you just cut all the braces and all out, and then drill out the spot welds?"

Mark,
When you drill out the spot welds you are taking the braces off the trunk pan. You will hear them when they "pop". Often you have to cut the braces into small pieces to get them off.

Many times you will get almost all of the spot weld out but there will be the smallest piece of it still attached. I often use a thin screwdriver as a chisel to get it to pop. If you take your time there will be minimal distortion of the metal, and less to flatten out once everything is freed. Believe me, if you do this long enough you will keep your "spot weld removing" screwdrivers in the "welding drawer" of your toolbox.:laugh:

Anytime you are trying to remove a thicker steel piece from a thinner one you are trying to save, it's a pain. It's much easier the other way around. You'll see.
Duane