Tomahawk715

Might as well jump right in with a question-Just started work on a 72 Coupe. I've got a 71 coupe for parts. The pans in the 72 are typical mustang shape. I had planned on full pans on each side-even picked up a pair from NPD down near Detroit. Started stripping the 71 the other day and the pans are PERFECT. Front to back (not using the 71 as it was in a serious front end crash). Now I'm wondering if taking the whole pan out isnt a better option. Final install would be alot cleaner-if not quicker. Thoughts? Second question on this same topic-I've looked at Mustangand Fordsarticle on the topic-they say they put the full pan thru the door with "Slight bending/flexing of the floor to fit it thru the door opening" I've never done a one piece floor-seems to me thru the windshield opening would be better?? Again any thoughts?

vineman

I had a friend who installed a full floor pan into a different uni-body car and he cut it into sections, driver, passenger, and rear seat. Lost some metal where he cut but not so much to affect it's fit. Maybe that could help?

Tomahawk715

Well I'd like to avoid that-I'd really like to drill all the spotwelds all the way around and then drop the full pan-then you would only have to redo the spotwelds-seam seal the seams-and hopefully have a much more sano looking job-but obviously its getting the floor in thats going to be the biggest hurdle. Cause I do plan on bracing as well no matter if I do one side at a time or the whole thing. Either way thats alot of metal coming out.

vineman

The windshield may be a bit narrow so you may have to bend it up in the tunnel just a bit for it to slide through, definately not a one person job i would think. Or, a more time consuming hard way to do it would be to remove the torque boxes and sub frames from under the car and lift it into the car but i dont think youd want to do that much work, bleh

Stepman

It should be basically the same...I cut mine (69)from a rust free coupe in the wrecking yard and put in as one piece. Angle it to fit in the bottom of the door and through the back window (side) It only took minor flexing.

Tomahawk715

I took a look again today and see what your saying about tilting it. Looks like more room when you look at the stripped car (72) as opposed to the one I just started stripping (71). Would you do the full pan again? I can see where it would save a ton of fitting and welding to do it this way.

Uncle Leo

I did the full floor pan thing. It was a bit beyond my capabilities, so I had it professionally done. I'm not sure exactly how he did it, but he said it went in surprisingly easy.

cappelsauto

seems like a lot of work to me. I would rather cut out the old floor by grinding the spot welds down and then air hammer the floor out. Get a hole punch for the new floor pans and weld them in. Quick and easy. You do not know the real condition of the plans until you start to clean them up and check the thickness of the metal. Good luck

Tomahawk715

Well the pans out of the 71 are perfect and I mean perfect. No rust under and none on the inside now that I've got the carpet out. Its going to be a job either way but its my biggest hurdle. I have a couple other small body issues-trunk drop is a little rough on one side-could be patched but I'm just going to replace it with a new one from NPD. Then some patch work on the bottom of the doors. Maaaybe some work on a rear quarter. I bought the 72 stripped. Guy sold off the rest of the car. My first thought was to use the front clip to fix the 71 but then when I started to look at the 72 I thought that would be way too much of a pita-Plus the 72 has a 302 and front disc brakes already. Gonna do all the body work on the 72-paint it-then transfer over all the parts from the 71. Anyone looking for a low mile I6 lol-runs like a champ