[zildjian4life218]

Hey everyone. This is my first time posing in the body-exterior section and I have little experience with metal fabrication. I have an 1986 S10 that has a V8 swap and will be a dedicated drag vehicle. The cab I have is pretty rotted and I ended up cutting out the floor since majority of it was rotted out and the firewall had to go due to engine placement.... onto my issue. I am looking on some input and suggestions on the best way to go about this.

I am planning on building a floor substructure out of 1"x1" tubing and will have aluminum sheeting on top of it. It will be welded along the length of the cab by the pinch weld. I will then weld a piece along the back that goes over the drive shaft and up each side of the transmission to the front where the firewall and floor meet. I will then make another piece that goes from each side to the middle piece by the trans and then go up the firewall to a piece along the bottom of the windshield. Here are some pics of where I am now and a couple drawings of my ideas. I have never done this before so all criticism and suggestion are welcome. I kinda just tacked the pieces in place for now.
The first four picture are of the rotting driver side cab mount. Im thinking about sand blasting it, welding a nut on the inside, and then painting it real good and putting the floor right over it.

[delawarebill]

are u talking about welding the alum floor to the sides somewhere???? the side portion is steel and u can't weld steel to alum... i'll assume i have your comments wrong and the above is not a valid answer..????

[zildjian4life218]

Originally Posted by delawarebill

are u talking about welding the alum floor to the sides somewhere???? the side portion is steel and u can't weld steel to alum... i'll assume i have your comments wrong and the above is not a valid answer..????

yes the floor will be riveted down. The trans tunnel portion will use those quick release clips for easy access. I forgot to add the rest of the pictures. Ill do that now.
Do you think If I prep the driver side mount as I said it will be okay? Its pretty rusty as is.

[zildjian4life218]

more pictures... the photo upload seems to be a little buggy right now so I will add them as it works for me. This picture is of the passenger side which seems to have help up a lot better than the driver side.

[Old Fool]

Originally Posted by delawarebill

are u talking about welding the alum floor to the sides somewhere???? the side portion is steel and u can't weld steel to alum... i'll assume i have your comments wrong and the above is not a valid answer..????

Back in the day where I worked , they welded tons of aluminium to steel. Connections strong enough to hold the superstructure on ships.

The process used was out of reach of most.

I was working at Kaiser Aluminium as a millwright.

The company had received an order from a defence contractor for a special application.
It was very interesting, take a plate of steel, and a plate of aluminium, and roll them thru a hotmill.
The millions of tons of force generated when passing through the mill cause the steel and aluminium to fusion weld together.

I wish I knew which ships received this product and how well it worked.
It was an extremely noisy process which we called thunderplate due to the noise of the plate moving down the roll tables.
The defence contractor would cut the plate into specific size and shape then weld the steel to the ships deck and weld the new aluminium superstructure to the aluminum side.

[zildjian4life218]

Originally Posted by Old Fool

Back in the day where I worked , they welded tons of aluminium to steel. Connections strong enough to hold the superstructure on ships.

The process used was out of reach of most.

I was working at Kaiser Aluminium as a millwright.

The company had received an order from a defence contractor for a special application.
It was very interesting, take a plate of steel, and a plate of aluminium, and roll them thru a hotmill.
The millions of tons of force generated when passing through the mill cause the steel and aluminium to fusion weld together.

I wish I knew which ships received this product and how well it worked.
It was an extremely noisy process which we called thunderplate due to the noise of the plate moving down the roll tables.
The defence contractor would cut the plate into specific size and shape then weld the steel to the ships deck and weld the new aluminium superstructure to the aluminum side.

Hmm thats pretty cool. Never heard of that before. Learn something new everyday!

[zildjian4life218]

Does anyone have any input or suggestions on the floor and how I should tie the floor into the cab and the cab into the frame? I figured I would use the existing cab mounts just replace the previous nut that floated in the housing with just a welded nut and a solid spacer to make up for the absence of an actual rubber mount.

[zildjian4life218]

here are a couple other pictures. I need to figure out how I am gonna address the kick panels since both are rather rotted.

[carolinacustoms]

For the floor the 1x1 tubing if welded correctly and enough is used to get strength that should be a fine system to rivet and zoosk (sp?) fasten the aluminum too. As for the kick panels and any other rusted panels you need to repair.....use a 4" grinder with a 1/16 cutting disc to remove the rusted metal. Try to keep lines as straight as possible and be sure to keep the piece you cut out. Use the piece you just cut out as a pattern on replacement metal by using a medium point sharpie to draw aroung the outside. Cut to the outside of you mark (the width of the marker line is about the same as your cutting disc) and viola, you have made a perfect fitting patch panel for flat surfaces if you want to butt weld them in. If you want to lap and spot wled the panels just use the piece you cut out and add 1/4" to the size of the cut out when marking. Use a flanging tool to make a flange all the way around the outside and drill holes where you want to spot weld the panel. Hope this helps a little.

[deadbodyman]

Heres some quick pics to look at.

[deadbodyman]

and a few more