Outer floor pan body mount and seat belt reinforcement????

[wingnutks]

Does anyone know what this actual part is called, and where it can be found? It is under the drive side door, outside by the rocker, above the frame rail. It looks like it is an extra peice of sheet metal that on of the body mounts bolts to. It continues back and is also a reinforcement for the bottom driver seat belt mounting bolt.

Thanks

 

[EME_Mack]

Is this the piece your talking about. Im not sure what its called but the floor is spot welded to this then the inner rocker is welded to them. it has a captured nut on top for the middle body mount and the seat belt anchor.

 

[565bbchevy]

I think EME Mack has reworked just about every piece of metal imaginable on his Cutlass.

 

[wingnutks]

Yup! That is it! My car has almost no rust, except for that piece. I dont know if someone dinged it with a floor jack or something so it started to rust, but nothing else has rust. The driver side has rusted from the just infront of the body mount forward about 6" The floor and inner rocker around it are not rusted at all. I am assuming that no one makes one of these reproduction? If not I guess I would have to fabricate something myself? This car is really clean otherwise, Id really rather not have to cut off the outer rocker and have to redo it and try and match paint. Do you just think I would be able to attack this from above, thru the floor pan along the sill. cut out a small section of the floor pan/sill, remove the rust, redo the body mount and reinforcement sheet metal, and then weld it back down?

 

[wingnutks]

Also, it looks like in the pic of the full frame that the captive nut is literally a welded nut on the underside of the reinforcement panel. Is that right? Or does it have one of those large diamond tabbed captive nut deals sandwiched between the reinforcement panel and the floor panel?

 

[EME_Mack]

The captive nut is loose and there is a diamond shaped "holder" that keeps it from spinning. to remove this body mount / seat belt brace that ties into the inner rocker and floor without cutting up the rockers I think is doable. You would have to drill out the spot welds from the top of the floor or cut the floor out around this piece and weld it back in after or weld a new floor in. There is a bunch of spot welds that attach to the inner rocker that would be hard to get too, I drilled them out from the rocker side. Since the brace is thicker then the inner rocker metal its hard to locate were the spot welds are. If I were to do it I would cut straight down about 1/8 of an inch inbaord from the the inner rocker, then drill out the spot welds on the floor that attach to the brace that your removing. You will most likely have to remove the outer seat bracket and a section of the support that runs from side to side under the seat to access all the spot welds. The hardest part would be getting a chisel or flat bar in between all the panels to separate them. Are you planning on removing the body?

 

[wingnutks]

Definitely not planning on removing the body. I was thinking of doing it without drilling out any spot welds, basically replacing it like I would any floor pan patch. Cut along the sill about 1/8" inward from the rocker about 6" or so forward and behind where the body mount is, and then a cut along the floor pan just outboard of the outer seat mounts. If I cant find a donor reinforcement plate like you showed in the pic, I would just have to fabricate my own reinforcement plate that has a mount for the body/frame, and then weld that entire patch right back in. Backwards towards the seat belt mount is totally fine, so I wouldnt even have to cut that far back.
Does that sound like it would work?

 

[EME_Mack]

If your not going to remove the body thats basically how I did mine. I cut the hole thing out seperated the floor from the body mount brace on a bench then fabricated a new floor then spot welded it back on to the inner rocker. If you look at my build thread on page 4 i think, I have some pics of how I did it

 

[wingnutks]

what i dont understand was how was ur brace so pristine and ur floor so shot?

 

[EME_Mack]

Ha I dont know. It was pretty pitted but turn out ok after i sand blasted it. Rust does wierd stuff up here. Ive seperated two seemingly clean panels only to find rust between the two.