Floorboard Repair

Three sections of the floorboards were cutout and patches welded in.  All of the floorboard repair panels were obtained from Mac's Auto Parts. I opted to purchase the economy style panels, which were about half the cost of the premium panels.  The panels are not exact reproductions in regards to styling of the impressions and alignment.  They did serve their purpose and I am satisfied with the result.  If a perfect restoration is your goal then the economy panels are not the way to go.

For each panel I chose to not cutout the entire panel instead opting to cutout an area slightly larger than the damaged area.  A side benefit to this was that I used the remainder of the panels to create sheet metal patches for other areas on the car.

Parts purchased

Toe Board - Economy Style - Right Part # 42-34619-1
Floor Pan - Economy Style - Rear Left Part # 42-34615-1
Floor Pan - Economy Style - Rear Right Part #42-34618-1

Passenger Side Front Toeboard

I started by outlining the area that I was going to cutout with a sharpie.  I made sure to go several inches on either side of the rusted metal.  Once I had the outline, I took measurements to ensure that the toeboard patch panel was large enough.  Before breaking out the grinder I layed masking tape along my cut line.  I find this makes it easier to cut straight.

Here you can see the daylight shining through my hole.  I made sure to take the grinder to the edges to ensure I could get a good weld at the seam.

Here you can see the old rusted piece next to the trimmed patch.  I ended up laying the old piece on top the toeboard patch panel and traced it with a sharpie.  This created a usable patch.  I ended up with a gap on the left side due to the contours not matching exactly.  By the time I finished with the hammer and dolly the gap was quite sizable.  I also wasn't paying attention to the thickness of my cutoff wheel and taking that into account when choosing where to cut in relation to the sharpie line.

Tip: I found that a thick chisel tip sharpie was the same width as my cutoff wheel.  Using this to trace my patterns and parts and cutting on the outside of the line greatly improved the fit of my patches.

Here is the finished patch welded in.  Here you can see that the economy panels don't have the impressions in the correct spots.  For my purposes this is okay.