I was doing a little writeup on my buddies 97 that I replaced a rocker and stuff on and ran across the pics from when I did the floorpan on my 86 F350, thought I'd share since questions arise every so often.








I know I could have done more, but I was just trying to get a couple more years out of the plow truck. Feel free to criticize!

 

Here's the 97 I did in case someone wants to see more backyard body shop stuff.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...pair-pics.html

 

Added this to the Sticky, too - pictures are good and give people ideas based on what others have done.

 

Cool. Fyi, the floor pan I believe came from JC whitney, and the other piece I cut out of a door skin or hood. I tack welded a spot or 2 and formed it as I went with the Estwing you see there and a 3lb sledge. The carpet hides all the ugly.

 

I realize that you just want to get a couple of more years out of the truck, but how do you plan on getting to the front cab mount bolt now?
May be something for others to think about when doing a job like that.

 

So you tacked it and put seam sealer on it? Hey man, that's better than what we did to my truck. Heck, you even got matching paint. Looks great.

For my truck, we cut roofing sheet metal, got it in the general shape of the floor pan, and used pop rivets to rivet it to the floor after we cut the rust out. Once that was done, I caulked all the edges and rivets shut, primed and painted over it with rattle cans.

I attempted to do just what you did, get a few more years of life out of my truck. Being that mine is aluminum, it won't rust though.

The floor is also pretty tight. The passenger side pan will pop if you press on the right spot where the metal flexes.

We also took the aluminum and did flat bends and made ridges for the door seal to tighten up against on both sides, just like on the original rocker panels. Those, too, were pop riveted to the floor. Holding up great so far.

 

Wow. I was really surprised when I found any rust at all on my '85 that I bought last October, but I have nothing compared to many people here. It must be the part of the country I'm in (Bay Area, California). Is it the additional rainfall they get in other parts of the country, or salt on the roads in the winter? I know salt is destructive as heck on vehicles of all kinds. I wonder why they still use it as opposed to other methods.

 

Tack welding is a LOT easier than pop rivets. (If you have a welder, of course) Self drilling screws will work too, probably a little easier than pop rivets. I just used some latex caulk I had laying around to seal things up. Cutting a hole to access the cab bolt would be easy enough.