K body sub-floor boxes

I got the Packard Hawk up on the lift today with the new owner present, and saw that I will have to replace all of the sub-floor boxes and floor braces. I hope to do it w/o ruining the excellent door fit, so could use advice from some of you experts who have done the procedure. I see that Classic has the parts for the GT Hawks, but they only carry the inner rockers for the earlier K bodies., not the sub floor boxes, so I will have to make my own which should be no big deal. Probably will use 20 ga. paint grip galvanized, but what do you use? My idea is to remove all of the old parts while the car is still on the frame, and install the outboard sections of the sub-floor boxes along with inner rockers, then remove the body from the chassis to install the inboard boxes.

Thanks for the input!

Barry'd in Studes

Reply to
Barry
Loading thread data ...

Barry,

What I do with convertibles, which tend to be more felxible than even the K-body cars, is to weld braces into the car while still on the frame. Get some 1" square box tubing and weld it from the kick-panel area to the rear inner quarter at the top and bottom of the door opening. Then use 1/8" flat stock and "X" brace across the opening as well.

If you do this while the body is on-frame and the doors closed, you should then be able to remove the body from the frame and replace the floor braces and hog troughs in full without any obstructions in the way.

I did this on my '62 ragtop, while still on the frame, then removed the body and supported it on a 4X4 that was on cement blocks across the two firewall mounts and the two rear body (in the back of the trunk) mounts. While only supported at the two extreme ends of the body shell, the doors still open and close like they did when the car was on the frame.

Lee DeLaBarre Daytona62

Reply to
Lee

Barry,

I have not had much time for Studes this year but I am almost complete with building the boxes on my 64 convertable. I am using 1/8 inch 2 inch angle iron. I did not strengthen the body when I removed the hogs. I knew one side of the old boxes had some rot but when I removed the undercoating I found the inside side of both of them was gone also. I do not understand this as after I removed them i had shiney floor board metal underneath them. I had to adjust the drivers door a little but did not have to adjust the passenger door. The drivers side of this car is actually the worst side as far as rust goes, which is really strange. These floor boards are really solid with only a couple small patches( installed before this effort) so I figured removing the rotted out hogs would not hurt as they were not really doing that much anyway. When I removed the original boxes I think I could have filled a trash can with all the hunks of rust that came out. These things looked much better on the outside than they were on the inside.

I built the boxes by using the angle iron to form a u channel on the inside and outside of each box. I used this method as it allowed me to manever around the frame supports. I could not have gotten a u channel in there with the length I used. The outer rails are close to 6 foot in length which gave me the strength I wanted as they run from the front floor boards to just in front of the rear wheel well. This is my first convertable and it seems that the area under the rear window was not supported as well as it could have been originally as that water running down into there from the rear window had a poor design for removal or draining..

I placed a galv plate across the bottom of the two u channels ( two pieces of angle used to make a u) I really think the 8 pieces of angle I used are better than the original hogs but they do not look as nice I guess. I attached the bottom plates with screws and caulking so i can get in there again if i ever need to. I ran 1/4 flat steel from each of the frame mounts across the two u channels.

This method seemed to really work for me, the 1/4 flat steel supports the outer u channel and still allows me screw the plate on the bottom. The galv I used was pretty heavy and I put two ridges in it to add strength.

I do think that the door I had to adjust was due to the fact that I "repaired" a saggy floor and someone previous had adjusted that door to allow for the sagging floor.

Reply to
UncleMiltie

I installed the no longer produced CE sub floor boxes on my Hawk. Your method seems to be as good as any, and one point that you brought up about the area under the rear window not being supported properly is correct. CE had small boxes that did the trick, but, once they were/are in, rear spring replacement is impossible.

Reply to
Bill Glass

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.