Dear All, glad to start a new post with your community of enthusiast cadillac Owner.
I would like to speek again about my 1978 EFI fleetwood brougham d'elegance. I've made a global inspection inside my car and discovered a water leak that has flooded for years my insulator carpet and destroyed my floor pans. Of course, there is some rust and the rear right pan has some serious problem (2 holes of 2inches long). I'm searching for some restoration floor pans kit. But without succes for my 4 door sedan for the moment.
As a kit is for me the best way to fix the problem (I don't want to use some fiber glass, and in France it's hard to find a specialist of Cadillac restoration parts), does any of you has an adress of a manufacturer that could sell the best panel parts to fit my old but beautifull lady ?
They don't exist. No one is reproducing the B/C/D GM RWD floors yet. You either need to cut some patches out of a parts car, or just fabricate patches from sheetmetal.
thanks for your reply, even if it was the reply I was fearing !!!
I will make by myself some patches, and will fix the problem like this.
Many thanks again, and have a great day.
If you wanted them to look really beautiful for people that actually look under there, you could probably buy some floor pans for a classic car like a Chevelle or Impala and adapt them to the Caddy floor. They only have to be beautiful if you plan to sell it someday. Good luck.
Hello hello !
Here is a view of the worst pan (right rear panel). With a very good view on my rust problem.
The front right pan is quite OK.
Looking this, if you could comment. I still hesitate to use metal patches (from a spare car or with new metal sheet, or resin and fiberglass coating...)
to be continued...
have great day.
Jeff
By comparison of a lot of these sections I have seen, that section is relatively good. On most of the cars I have gotten from the NE USA the passenger side front section is gone far worse than that due to heat transfer from the catalytic converter and leaks around the air box and front window. I have manufactured my own patch panels using hammer and mollies and the original floor section as a template. It is a time consuming process, but I was satisfied with the end results. They wouldn't win a beauty contest, but they sealed in the floor, as I intended them to do. Pull out that floor drain cover and determine how much actual metal is left after that section completely dries. Wire brush the metal there and on the underside. Then determine the integral strength of the section and what needs to be replaced. Use a high speed cutting disk and a small die grinder to cut out any section areas you determine deteriorated. You can use them as a template for your replacement pieces.
That rust doesn't look too bad. I'd wait for it to dry them assess how much is no longer solid. I've seen far far worse here in the junkyards (including a red '78 coupe that had a street sign welded in the floor)
Wow---a street sign welded in the floor! That`s the first time i`ve heard of that one.
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As other have said,let it dry and see how it really is.That rust is not that bad from the pics.It would be cheaper to just let it dry,sand or grind it down and put fiberglass on it.Fiberglass does`nt rust and you don`t have to do a perfect cosmetic job since it`ll all be covered over.
The body floor pans of my Cadillac are now dry, and the metal seems to be strong enough. I've use a wire brush to confirm that in a perimeter of an half inch around the holes, the original metal is correct. So I've decided to use some fiber glass to fix my problem. I have a road sign just in front of my home, but I don't know how to remove it without being seem by my neighbours as a really strange guy !!!
I will continue that thread to make a post showing the way to put some fiber glass on body panels.
Thanks a lot guys !
Jeff
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