Car Floor Pans

Metal worms have eaten a few holes in my '68 Austin front floors. Original pans have half round stiffening ribs pressed into them. Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal 0.034 to

0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or other simple workshop tools. Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib about 9 inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated by 3/4 inch from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches square. Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or Jewish lightning please). Ray
Reply to
Ray Field
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If you have enough throat depth on your arbor press to reach the center of the sheet, then an arbor press could do it. What you'd need is a set of dies, one with a half-round bump on it, and one with a half-round depression slightly larger than the bump, to account for the material thickness. But, putting these ribs in a little at a time might warp the sheet pretty badly.

Well, if you are only going to patch 9" squares at a time, you could pount them flat after the rib is made.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Get a chunk of 3/4" Balsamic Birch plywood bigger than the section you need. Use a 3/4" cove bit in the router to cut the pattern you want. Cut a second sheet of plywood to fit over the top, cut the same pattern all the way through. Clamp the whole works together and place on a SOLID surface (concrete block or el cheapo Harbor Freight anvil) Make a tamping tool from green ash (shovel or hammer handle) about 1-1/2" wide x5/8" with the 3/8" radius. Start tapping.

Ray Field wrote:

Reply to
RoyJ

The wood die method suggested by Roy is valid. The method I've used was often just a chunk of board with a radiused trough wallowed out in it. The distortion isn't so great along the rib, but slightly greater at the end of a rib, where the end forms a half-bowl (or the rib is a junction of a Y or T shape).

Using just the blunted pick end of a bodywork hammer is a hell of a lot of tapping, but it'll work if the forming process is gradual.

It sounds as though you have enough equipment to form the patches. Establishing the parallel straight lines using a vise jaw edge or similar straightedge, is a good starting point, then the rest of the patch will draw into the trough in the die, or stretch as needed, as a result of the small area of concentrated force delivered by the blunt point of the hammer.

I haven't been involved in old car restoration for many years, and I'm not familiar with all the sheetmetal products that are available today. It wouldn't surprise me if a supplier is making ribbed steel in continuous strips with flat margins on the sides, which could be purchased, trimmed, and TIG/MIG'd into existing panels.

WB ..............

Ray Field wrote:

Reply to
Wild Bill

If you want a new harbor freight toy, er, tool (:-))

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will do what you need. On sale frequently as low as $99. At your thickness it will do well, but I still recommend getting to the full depth in two or three passes. The arms tend to flex sideways if you try for too much pressure. I mostly use mine for rolling beads on the ends of intercooler pipes so I only need about 1/2" of throat so I used a strap to tie the upper and lower arms together at the block by the dies. Much more rigid and still an inch or so of throat. Anyway, fails the "only using tools I already own" spec, but who can live like that? :-) :-)

-- Regards, Carl Ijames carl.ijames at verizon.net

Reply to
Carl Ijames

==================== Or get a cheap air-chisel set from WalMart and modify one of the tools to a radius. [wear hearing protection]

Uncle George

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Reply to
RoyJ

Me Mum used to 'ave a '68 Cambridge, as I recall the thing was built out of war surplus Royal Navy battleship plating.

.040 is pretty close to 18 gu. sheet, I won't say you can't hand form it but I will say you won't enjoy doing it. My suggestion is to take your new floor pans to an industrial strength sheet metal shop & have them roll the beads for you. They may not have the exact size but should probably have something close, you'll never be able to tell the difference once the carpet goes in :).

H.

http://users.eastl>Metal worms have eaten a few holes in my '68 Austin front floors. Original

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer

Reply to
Ray Field

If this isn't a restoration, but merely a keep-it-going repair, then you could add the stiffening as separate pieces welded to the bottom of the patch. I would take a piece of your sheet, about 1 1/2" wide & as long as the needed rib, clamp it between 2 angle irons in a vise and hammer it over. Tack weld in place.

Or take a piece of thin wall conduit, slice it in half (steady hand on a bandsaw should do it) and tack weld in place.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

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