Reinforcement pans

This is a lower reinforcement pan for '65 Mustang painted with Nexa Autocolor P565-909 1K etch primer. These were used in convertibles only to stiffen the self-supporting unibody. I have drilled some holes to the flange already. The four bigger openings are factory-made.

These are pressure impregnated boards which I used for compressing the pan against the floorpans. Any other type can be applied but I had these near my hands when I designed these helpful tools.

The bolts I had were too short so I had to use something else available to act as a washer.

Time to weld the spots. I started from the outer edge where the reinforcement pan meets the inner rocker with a couple of spots the moved forward on top of the floorpan and finally used a couple of bolts and lugs to pull the flange against the propeller tunnel.

The floorpan area covered by the reinforcement pan had earlier been primered. The holes are for inserting the seat lugs and for spraying the anti-rust compound.

The bolts are left there. I may later exploit them for hanging fuel and brake lines.

The inner flange was seam welded all along the flange. This seam costed me a shirt. It caught fire from splashing weld. The seam weld between the floor pan and the propeller tunner is left below the flange. The picture below shows two things. It is a reinforcement plate to be bolted between the two reinforcement pans. It is important to check that the pans are in line with each other so that this plate can be installed. I did not fit both pans simultanously. Instead I installed one and after that aligned the other using this plate.

The other thing seen in the above picture is the blue color. I painted this plate about a year ago with P565-909. The plate went throught the 2500 bar high pressure wash and it remained slightly blue. The etching obviously had worked, very adhesive stuff, but requires a top coating later.

I'll reuse the original seat platform. It is waiting for some hammering, grinding and primering.