Upon removing my carpets, noticed the floors looked a bit rusty/rotted. Originally thought it was just the firewall extension pans, but come to find out, its firewall extension pans, front floor and rear floor. Seat platforms and underneath pans are fine. I know the firewall extension pans are about 50 bucks a piece, and the floor pan replacement (single pan to replace the whole thing) is around $600 or so. Body shop is priming, painting, and welding and obvoiusly cutting the old pans out. Its a local classic car restoration body shop. He's telling me that it will be between $2000 and $2500 total. Is this ballpark?

 

Yeah, thats a good deal for the floor, and paint

 

Is the 2000 just for priming, painting, welding the pans or does painting & priming including the whole car. I've got rusted pans both passenger and driver front that have been patched but not very well. I was wondering what I can expect to pay for the work. Did not feel comfortable doing myself.

 

the 2+ grand is to cut out the rotted floor pans (all of them), paint and prime the new pans, and weld them into place. This includes the firewall extension pans. Not to paint the car itself. To my surprise, all of the pans were patched, and some time ago because they were definitely hurtin', but couldn't see holes unless you start digging a bit, then they appeared. There was no way I was going to lay a new carpet and new interior over old, poorly patched pans. I'm just that kinda person, it would drive me nuts. The thing that's tough with these cars is I (and some friends) looked at the underneath before I bought the car 2 months ago and it looked clean as a whistle. The double layer pans or whatever they call em keep you from seeing the floor pan damage. The good news is my frame etc is fine. At least I'll have the comfort of knowing my car has good floors now, but its a $2000 monkey wrench thrown into my plans. I wanted to get new wheels and replace the convertible top this year. Looks like that's gonna wait.

 

just my opinion, but 2 grand is pretty pricey to just cut out the old stuff and weld a new piece in. Priming and painting them isnt a big deal either, and its not like it has to be a perfect job, cuz who is actually gonna come to your car and yank up the carpet and sound deadener and say, oh i see a run and a fish eye on this pan. Not likely.

 

muggsy,
this is irrelevent to your question, but anyways. where is this restoration shop? once i get out of school ill be looking for a job like that.

thanks.

 

Try a couple of other shops and get some other bids. The floor pans are a straight forward replacement so it doesn't really need to to be a resto shop. Try some smaller places with some old guys working there. I'm sure you can beat the price. Always look at some of their work before you decide. When I was doing this work we would do floorpans and frame rails on a convertable for 2500. So it sounds a little high to me.