Finally Finished Welding the Floorpan

A welcome change in the weather occurred this past Sunday.  The temperatures in Texas dropped from a daily high of around 105 degrees to 90 degrees.   Without the hot garage to fight against, I decided it was time to get moving on the Mustang.  This involved taking today and tomorrow off work to dedicate to the project.

On Sunday, I welded in the passenger side seat riser.  Before welding the riser in place, I sanded the inside and floorboard which would be covered by the seat riser.  I coated them both with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator and then Satin Chassis Black.  This might not be necessary but I wanted to keep the inside protected as the originals were not and were filled with rust when I removed them from the Mustang.

I started off the morning today by installing the driver side seat riser.  I had already painted it like the passenger side on Sunday.  I used the same installation approach as with the floorpan by fitting the panel and then drilling holes to plug weld the seat riser into place.  Each of the seat risers had about 40 holes in them about 2-3 inches apart.

With the seat risers in place, I turned my attention to the rear section of the floorpan under the rear seat.  The new floorpan did not extend all the way to the rocker panels.  The driver side was close enough to work the metal to get it to fit.  However, the passenger side was at least a 1/4" and there was no way to get it to fit without a fair amount of modification.

To make the passenger side fit, I cut off the end of the floorpan which welds to the rocker panel.  I placed the cut directly over the frame rail.  This would allow me to weld it to the rocker panel and then fill the cut area with weld.  The job was not too difficult as the frail rail flange made welding the gap closed much easier.

With everything welded, I started the process of grinding down all of my welds.  There are a few which a placed two far into a corner to grind down.  This bothers me a little but there is nothing to do about it.  Additionally, only I'll know as I'm going to coat the floor with sound deadener and you will never see it.

I worked from 8AM to 5PM on the Mustang so it was definitely a long day.  Tomorrow, I think I'll work on stripping the area behind the dash.