So I'm about to cut out the bad places in my driver side pan to replace it with sections from my parts car. Right now the front of my car is supported on jackstands right below where the firewal starts and the k member is out of the car aswell. I'm borrowing a plasma and only have it for a few days and am wondering what will be the best way about doing this without causing subframe issues!? I'm not cutting out the whole pan just some places where your feet rest and the seat mounting parts sincethe front one has decent about of rot and both missing one stud . Ill post pictures of all the rot when I get home.thanks

 

I think if your only doing patch work you dont have much to worry about. If it flexes it'll be negligible IMO.

 

here are a couple of pictures of what im dealing with.

 

I wouldn't cut anything, looks like some surface rust.

 

surfae rust that i can poke my fingers though lol there are a few quarter size holes and its pretty weak. also the mounting parts for the seat is shot each one on the river side is missing a stud.

 

Most of the strength is in the rocker panels so cutting out some of the floor pan shouldn't hurt. I would put the T tops in just as a precaution.
I suppose the best thing would be to weld a temporary beam in each doorway but probably not necessary unless there is a lot more hidden rust....

 

well the t-tops are in right now and i planed to leave them in when i start cutting and welding of the pan. like i said the k member is out of the car right now so that had me worried about flexing.

 

I wouldn't worry about flexing if that's all you're doing. I would, however, remove/cover all the glass components. You'll be throwing sparks that can easily melt/etch glass.

 

I will be cutting it out with a plasma and welding it back in with just flux core so yeah there will be spatter. I hope to get this done soon cause once its done I can finaly put my interior back in since its been out for 5+/-years.

 

Just make sure and coat everything well on both sides once done, I goofed and forgot about some places when I fully welded my interior [cheesy stock spot welds suck] but you lose the coating on the other side still just from the heat.

 

For now I will clean and paint both sides good but I'm hoping that next fall I can find a good shop to weld in a 1/4 for me and that winter I'm going to be striping the car down again and seam weld the car and por 15 everything.and paint it next spring. Pretty much now I'm getting it together to get al the bugs out from sitting and to get the lsx swap done and running good then then go back though and give the body the final touches.

 

well i cut some out tonight here is where im at i had more in places i didnt realize and less in places i thought it was more lol. im going to it the wholre area with a grinder and finish cutting out the area with the seat mounting pieces tomorrow and do the same to the parts car and maybe get it welded back in and painted this weekend but we will see how that goes.

p.s i love plasma cutters