Progress Thread Floor pan repair/build thread

Well I’m excited to start this progress thread on my 5 speed 89 Gt. The car was originally an auto and was turned into a 5 speed but done pretty badly. Now that I’ve suffered through getting the car to run right and have memorized the surging idle checklist by heart, it’s finally time to tackle some of the much needed body/chassis work. I’ve torn down the car and removed the disgusting carpet. This is some of the stuff I found underneath

Inside the area where there should be a shifter boot there was this weird material shoved in there and whatever it was leaves your hands black and very sticky. I’ve got a new manual transmission tunnel hump ready to go in along with a brand new lower shift boot. I also plan on replacing this clapped out short throw with a Pro 5.0 short throw.

On to the next piece of horror

This car has the typical stud ripped out of the cross brace but it had a hole drilled in the floor pan with a long bolt with a circular flat had ran through it so it could still have the driver seat bolted down.

Now finally onto the kinda heart breaking part of my findings.

This is the passenger side near where the rear seat bolts go. It cracked and then rusted a little and has started to kinda separate from the rocker. Also the floor pan area closest to the passenger rocker is tweaked so that the bolt for the seat track goes in straight down rather than at an angle like the rest do. This worry’s me because i feel like that’s going to make installing the seat braces for the subframe connectors next to impossible. Should I buy the floor pan for the passenger side or just have it patched?

Unfortunately cracks don’t stop there. Here a few I found on the drivers side although not as bad I’m still concerned.

This is on the drivers side very close to the rocker. It has split away from the rocker a little bit on this side and also cracked a little over to the right as well.

On to the last crack thankfully

This crack is where the floor pan transitions to the Trans tunnel. That one doesn’t seem too bad to repair at all.

I believe the drivers side is a bit better of than the passenger side. Although I’ve seen floor pans way worse than this and have still been repaired properly.

Here’s a picture of what everything overall looks like

Oh yeah almost forgot to mention that I absolutely stripped the T50 torx bolt that secures the driver side seat belt receiver. I have no idea what I’m going to do about that. The rest came out with little to issue but that one fought and fought until my ratchet and cheater bar combo slipped and stripped it out. Any advice on how I could go about removing that? I had to cut the old carpet around it to get it out and I’d prefer if I don’t have to do that with my new carpet. The guy I’m going to have doing all of this work is great at this type of stuff so I have no doubt it’ll all get done right I just don’t know if I should replace the passenger floor pan or not. I’m leaning towards that option.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the way things look. I thought it was much worse. Although I’d love to do a lot the cutting and welding myself I just don’t have the means or location to do it.

I’ll be updating this thread as the work gets done on the car and eventually you all will get to join me as I attempt to re dye some of the interior on the car. I’ll also be getting a cup holder console to go back in.

Also one last bonus photo. How and why is the metal around the shifter even like this?

alutwon said:

If it were my car, I would replace those rusty pans and weld subframes to the car. Even if you don't do a full replacement subframes are a must to prevent further stress fractures.

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Yeah I forgot to mention that the reason I was tearing this all down is to prep for subframe connectors and pan repairs

HemiRick said:

What do you know about the history of this car? Why so many cracks? If the metal is unrusted you can weld up the cracks....rust needs to be replaced.

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I don’t know much about the history of it other than it was involved in an accident in the late 90s and that was a fender bender in the front end (noted by the cheap header panel and the bumper not even being riveted back on) but other than that the chassis looks pretty good. The car was swapped from an auto to manual and has some cheap upper and lower control arms. Other than that everything else was unmolested except for some janky wiring. I’m not positive on why it has so many cracks but it was an Ohio/WV car for the vast majority of its life.

Before everything is put back in I’ll have to figure out this stripped seat belt receiver torx t50. Not sure why Ford decided to use a torx for that but oh well I guess.

This was a pic taken before I just cut the old carpet around it. Any advice?

7991LXnSHO said:

1. Use penetrating oil like liquid wrench for several days.
1.5. Tap the bolt head while soaking to see if you can knock the corrosion loose.
2. Real Vice Grips with new teeth.
3. Grind off flat faces on the bolt head for the Vice grips to hold if they slip in step two.
I think heat without hurting the belt webbing is going to be difficult to use here. A butane hand held torch and some sheet metal to shield the belt might work. But I would always be worried about the belt after that.

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Solid advice. I also believe heat would mess up the little rubber bushing/spacer behind the belt bracket as well. I’ll have to go get some new vice grips as mine are all old and gross and the teeth definitely aren’t cut out for the job. I’ll start soaking it tonight. Thanks

Well I’ve spent the last few hours trying the vice grip method and unfortunately I’ve been defeated. I don’t have a grinder to do the other methods and the guy who will be doing the floor pans says he’ll get it out for me. I’ve gotten the bolt to turn maybe 3/16s of a turn based on looking at the picture of it that I posted on here

However I’ve been looking at my floor pans more and more and where the drivers side is ripped toward the rocker it’s allowed it to sort of cave in towards the rocker and that would explain why my seat bolster rubs against the door armrest. The more I look at them the more Im thinking about getting new floor pans however the guy that’s doing them says he can most likely fix them since he has so many donor cars lying around. I just don’t like how the pans are tweaked and caved in where they’re ripped. At least some good news is I got my MM full length subframes ordered last night so once the pans are fixed I’ll never have to deal with this mess again

7991LXnSHO said:

I do not like the part about the stuck bolt, but I do like the new floor pan and subframe connectors.
I would have next grabbed my 4’ pipe wrench and my 14 year old assistant if the angle was right. That monkey wrench has torn apart rusted steel pipes.

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Actually a good idea. After work tomorrow I’ll get mine and see what I can do. I got up under the car and sprayed PB blaster right at the backside of the bolt where the rust is but that thing is stubborn. Really makes me upset because that bolt will be on my mind until it’s out which will be a minute because the guy that does all my work also does every other fox body guys work in the immediate area lol. So if I can’t get it off with a pipe wrench I’ve just got to angrily deal with it for a week or two

Also while I have all of this stuff out it would be a great time to do some sound deadening. I have a couple more rust spots that I’ll have to tear up the sound deadening in the foot wells to get to so they can be patched so I’m wondering what some good sound deadening I could put in would be? I’m not concerned about weight really as this car will never see a track. I don’t need it to be pre-formed I’d just like to be able to cut it and form it myself. I don’t need to go studio level quiet but I would like to quiet down the car a bit as it’s a little overwhelming at times when I have to scream at my passenger lol. Any recommendations?

alutwon said:

I sound deadened my car back when i first got it. I used some stuff called GT mat but idk if they still sell it. what ever you go with make sure it isnt the roofing stuff, it stinks to high heaven in the heat. Also this stuff gets expensive so from what i read you really only have to deaden the flat portions of the interior (like the floor pans) as the curves do not transmit a lot of sound and vibration. But take that with a grain of salt, I did the entire floor of my car and the doors and its solid.

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Yeah I did some research and saw that using asphalt based adhesive ones will stink really bad and heat the car up bad and that’s a huge no no for the south. I found some stuff called Kilmat and it’s a butyl based one and it’s supposed to be pretty good.

7991LXnSHO said:

I would be sure the parts near the firewall and above the cat. convertors and mufflers are covered by a heat reflecting and noise absorbing material.
I do not like the idea of putting something on the inside of the door because of dings and PDR.

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Ah I didn’t think about not doing the inside of the doors for that reason. I’m pretty sure it would be next to impossible to get that stuff out of there if needed. Good point on the mufflers and cats.

JasonRP said:

For that stuck seat belt bolt, you can also try to take a dremel tool to cut a slot in the head, and then use an hammer impact driver (not a power tool- it's this thing: link) and that will probably free it up and remove it.

Oh! And I used this sound deadener: link
I have no idea how the stuff I used ("Noico brand") compares to the real "Fat Mat" or "DynoMat", etc.

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In my research last night I actually saw noico pop up. Do you have any bad smells when the car gets real hot?