Hello everyone. I hope yoou are all enjoying your cars. I need to ask for a little advise about replacing my trunk pan in my 68 HT.

I need to know what tool should use to cut the old pan out? How much of it to cut? And the best way to weld the new one in place?

I already have the new pan and a friend who can weld. However, that's where his help will start and end with just doing the welding. I, have to cut the old one out as well as have the car ready for the welding.

Also, this may sound a tad silly, but what all should I remove from the car before I start removing the old pan? Thank you very much for any information you may have on this subject. Good day friends.

Mike
Clackamas, Oregon

your best bet is to take it to a body shop

Ahh, Terry is always the most help

I wrote up a good step by step for replacing floor pans in here a few weeks ago, the same thing will apply for replacing the trunk. I'll find it and repost it here.

I've done many cars. Mostly Mustangs and I did the trunk in my brother's '71 Goat and another '69 Chevelle 396 (Nice!).

From what you've written I guess you are doing the entire trunk. The hardest part will be the seam. You have to decide (with the help or your friend who will be doing the welding) what your goals are BEFORE you start anything. You can either try to make it look like it was never changed (very hard to do and requires hours of tedious seam welding/cooling/welding grinding/sanding/sanding more) or you can decide to just have a nice sealed lip all the way around the patch panel that can be spotted by either the trained eye (if you really take your time, use the flange method, and do it right) or anybody (if you do a fast job that simply works with the overlap method).

-First, get a patch panel that is bigger than what you are going to cut out.
-Cut out the area however you need to.
-Get a compressed air flange tool like this one .
-Flange the PATCH panel all around so that it fits into your cutout pretty well. You'll need to cut metal off the patch panel in order to be able to flange it so that it fits in.
-Use the Flange tool to punch holes IN THE PATCH PANEL that will be used to mig weld it to the floor board. I haven't done a car lately, but I think I used to do a weld every 1-3 inches depending on the strength I felt I needed?.
-I always like to sand and prep the areas and paint with a weldable primer.
-I always used self tapping screws to screw my patch panel in first before welding as a last chance sanity check. Look underneath and see that you have made a pretty small gap between the trunk and inner part of the emboss on the patch panel that will need to be filled with a sandable seam sealer or fiberglass based filler if you can't find the better seam sealer product.
-Weld that puppy in there using the mig welder! Start in the center of the hole you cutout and work your way out in a circular pattern making sure to really weld the perimeter of your hole with the nice solid weld you started in the center.
-I always like to grind my welds flat but this is just a personal preference.
-Finish it off by sealing everything. Sanding. And priming.

I've pretty much described what to do at the perimeter of the part because it is the most important from a cosmetic point of view. You will have to weld the panel in all the same places the original panel was (you'll learn this when drilling out the spot welds of the original panel. For these interior portions of the panel I usually weld from the underside of the car through the hole that was created when I drilled out the spot welds from the top side.

Good luck.
Dan

Dan is right on the money. You will need some tools to cut out the trunk floor and grind the welds. If you have a good air compressor, then purchase good quality pneumatic tools - Snap On or Ingersoll Rand. Otherwise, purchase good quality electric tools.

If your trunk floor is pretty rusty, I recommend having it sand blasted (or do it yourself) so you can really see what you have to work with. There are portions of the trunk floor that are welded to the frame rail under the trunk floor and you have the carriers for the fuel tank.

Pull the fuel tank and see what it looks like from the bottom.

Get a copy of Classic Industries latest catalog for the Camaro - it shows all the trunk floor parts that are available. I haven't seen the new Firebird catalog, so I am not sure if they are listed yet.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Tom

For your other questions:

Cut out metal only after you have your patch panel in hand. Place it in the trunk and mark where the seam is all around it. Your measurement here is critical. Use your flange tool to decide how far below your marked line you should cut the metal: if the flange is 3/4" then cut 3/4" below the line.

To cut the panel out you can use an angle grinder with cutting wheel. My favorite is the Makita pictured here. I like the smaller 4" model best; I also use this to do any grinding later. I also make use of an air hammer but you don't necessarily have to use one.

Dan

And an other post from me ,who hasnt done this job myself but bought a car that had it done by previous owner ,and not excactly ,he had it done by a body shop...I saw the receipt, cost $ 500... it looked great from inside the trunk...but the underside left something to be desired...
I had to go around it afterwards, cleaned out as good I could and filled w fiberglass in the crevices between the old and new....did not want those to get filled w/ moist dirt etc and start new rust just around the edge of the connection...

the underside had a very jagged edge w gaps between old and new...
In my opinion, the underside is more important ,but the upper is what you`ll see..

my .02
Bjorn