driver's side floor repair--If at first you don't succeed...Part 2

Car restoration could be like life and a deck of cards; you play with what you're dealt.   Alex and RJ have weighted in and my friend Glenn who helped me find the fastback have all agreed that the gaps aren't that bad and there are some work-arounds.   So that's the direction I'm going to go in and ditch getting a new floor.  Like Alex commented, "Metal is metal", right?

So here's what I'm going to try.  I have some small pieces of the floor leftover from trimming the edges with the air saw.  I'm going to experiment with the "Alex method" of using those pieces to fill the gap and then grind off the excess.  Then I"m going to try the "Glenn method" which is to take a piece of small diameter wire, like 1/16" or 3/32",  and tack that in place to fill the gap and then grind that flush to the floor.  I'll swing by Thrifty Supply on the way home and pick up a piece and then let the experiments begin.   I promise I'll document it all with photos for the next person with the same or similar issue. 

That's what I love about this blog and others.  Everyone gets to learn from each other and get support to carry on.  If it weren't for that, I'd probably be ordering a new front floor today.  

Thanks guys!  I appreciate your encouragement.

driver's side floor repair--If at first you don't succeed...

After a couple of weeks of "challenges" on the home and work front, I got some time to get back working on the fastback.  And since it had been awhile since I did the fit of the front floor, the holes for the plug welds and edges needed to be cleaned up again to get rid of any surface rust that may have started to form.  So I pulled the floor out and got it all shiny in the right places...

Then I moved on to clean up the edges of the floor, the firewall extension, and the frame rail surfaces.  I also got underneath and cleaned up the edges of the transmission tunnel and driver's side passenger floor pan....

Then I put the floor in and got ready to use my nifty Eastwood weld clamps to keep the floor in place.  I used these on the right front splash apron and they worked slick...

If you are going to do any butt welding of auto body panels, these are definitely worth the price of admission.  I put the floor in and started the clamping process at the seam where the back of the driver's floor met the front edge of the passenger floor.  Things looked pretty good....

The gap was near perfect and proceeded to install clamps moving toward the transmission tunnel, but the gap at the corner was not closing up.  The bend in the floor pan was not tight enough. 

So I undid the clamps and got out my trusty hammer and dolly and proceeded to get the radius tighter.  It took a few tries and clamping and unclamping and more hammer and dolly work before the floor pan was getting to where it needed to be.

I still wasn't happy with the fit.  After looking more closely at the joint along the transmission tunnel, I discovered the floor pan needed to have some more material removed and some more hammer and dolly work to match the contour.   It was starting to look good....

I started to put the rest of the clamps in.  But as I got closer to the front of the transmission tunnel near the crossmember, I noticed the gap was widening.  I could pull it closer, but then the floor wasn't flush against the transmission crossmember  or frame rails.

Not good.   I made sure the floor was flush to the frame rails and crossmember and started the clamping process all over again for the umteenth time.  It was at this point that I realized there was no way I could keep the floor flush and get the fit at the transmission tunnel without the lip at the inside of the rocker panel having a 1/8 inch gap.  I did some measuring and there is way too much gap to even attempt to weld the joint together...

This is the joint in the middle of the floor and transmission tunnel.  It's about an 1/8" of an inch which is twice the width it should have been.  Here's the joint at the back of the driver's floor pan to passenger floor pan joint.

It's a little wide at 3/32 of an inch.  Ideal is 1/16".   The gap that was tight here spread as I tried to massage the floor and transmission tunnel gaps.  This just isn't going to work.

So...after all the hours of work on this one panel, it looks like I'll be ordering another floor pan and starting all over again.  The only think I can think of that screwed this us is that when I was trimming the floor, I didn't get it flush with the frame rails and transmission crossmember.

Oh well...   If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.