NullHead

It might have been asked before, but I really didn't find anything specific to my question ...

I have two things going on. I want to put SFC on my car, like these, but my car also needs floors. There's a few rot holes on the driver side and the passenger side might be just as bad. I just geed to get the carpet out and get a good look, but my question is this.

Should I install SFC before I dig into floor pans, or after I dig into floor pans? I've been reading up on doing the floors and seems like I need to brace the chassis when I cut floors out anyways. Wouldn't SFCs help hold the darn thing together when I start chopping floors out? I'm just curious if they'll be in the way of welding points on the floors, or if I can even trust SFCs to hold the car straight while I'm doing it. Obvsiously, I'd do SFCs and brace the chassis under the rockers with jack stands and under the front/rear of the car to keep it from bending in unfortunate places ....

I'm just curious as to your guy's thoughts on the subject. I'm sure there has been lots of you that have been there done that. I'm just curious if any of you have done it with SFCs already installed ...

Thanks!

BlackenedBird

iTrader: (5)

Before I did either one I'd check the chassis alignment due to your rust. The chassis could be tweaked already if the rust has allowed it to move.

NullHead

I believe it already has honestly. My driver's door doesn't have the same body lines as the passenger door does, but the hood and trunk are fine. The T-Tops also seem okay. Could be that the pins are just wearing out on the door.

So I'd be looking at taking it over to a body shop with a frame stretcher to make sure it's all in spec then? I have access to one of these at my work, and I know some people .. so if you think that's necessary, I can get that done I think. A guy at work said the one we have gets a beat up unibody within 3mm tolerance of O.E. measurements.

BlackenedBird

iTrader: (5)

Bad hinges will give you bad door-to-body line differences to start with, so I wouldn't use those to judge chassis alignment. Would I call it "necessary"? Not really. I'd say most SFCs are put on with no chassis aligment check done & turn out turn but that also never says how well their alignments are done afterwards. Since you have access to have it done at work? I'd call it a "no brainer", IMHO.

NullHead

I don't honestly know how this stuff works. I work in the mechanic/service portion. Does it require body work, or does it damage or stretch the body just by "checking" the body alignment on their machine? Can you even put it up there to simply "check" the chassis alignment?

If I were doing floor pans on my car, it would be at my house with my own 120V 40 amp welder. Currently it's flux, but I'll be converting it to mig here shortly. So, I can talk to one of the guys and see if he'll do me a favor and throw it up there, but I really don't know what any of that means to me. After it's on the machine, is it like a front end suspension alignment machine to where it shows you measurements and tells you where to move things, or do you clamp on chains and the machine stretches the car until it's good. Again, I honestly don't know how these machines do their magic, I only know that the machine is there, the body guys use it, and I only visit the body shop to use the suspension alignment machine.

BlackenedBird

iTrader: (5)

It is "easy" in that it gets strapped down & just reference points are checked, nothing changed. Only if they need to change it does anything get moved. For a customer to just have it checked? It is a "inexpensive" process. A customer should be ready to go ahead & get it corrected if it needs adjusted as it would only cost a bit extra for it to get set up again vs just getting it done at that time. Since you work there it should be easy either way you wanna go.

Yes. In simplest terms.....the machine clamps on in certain specific spots, sensors measure at specific spots & the machine pulls in certain directions the get those spots where they are supposed to be.

NullHead

Okay sounds easy enough.

Now lets say that the driver side front half the pinch weld is rusty to the point I wouldn't want to set a hoist arm on it. Would that area need to be fixed before it's put on the frame rack? I googled it some after you mentioned it and it seems like the car would be clamped on the pinch welds. Well I don't think mine would hold up to being clamped ...

At this point I'm thinking I might need to repair it before it gets aligned.

BlackenedBird

iTrader: (5)

I'd ask the chassis guy. I understand the basics & was around it when I worked in a body shop years ago but I was never the operator. You are probably correct on the pinch weld clamping procedure. When I was in a body shop unibodies were a brand new thing.

NullHead

Okay so lets say that if he were to tell me to fix my rust before he can clamp it down to the rack, would I want SFCs installed to support the car while I do floors, or would they be in the way of welding spots?

KnightmareCS

iTrader: (7)

Replace floors -> get body machine aligned -> throw on SFCs?

NullHead

Because I'm soo not a body guy .... I'm thinking of doing the floors myself to save some money, but how much do you guys think it would cost me to just have a body guy do it? I'm a decent welder, and my machine is decent, but I can't say I've attempted anything like this before.

I am at a place to where I think I will either cut out the bad sections and section in parts from another car, or cut the entire floor out and do the whole thing at once. I am okay with either really, but I'm worried that if I get into it, and it turns out that the rust goes far enough into the rockers and up the pinch weld too far, I'll be in over my head at that point. If it's at a body shop .. it's less worry and stress for me while the pros are doing their what they do. But I can save myself some money if it's just some pieces of a floor board and it's easy cut/weld type stuff.

The more I think about it, it's probably going to be easier to let a pro do it. It's just gonna cost a fortune is what I'm concerned about ... third gens are cheap to come by these days. I think it would be cheaper to buy a clean shell and swap everything over at that point.