Outer Pan Support Question

I honestly can't grasp what you're talking about, but would be happy to get my car up on a lift and take photos of the area you're highlighting, just so you can see how it is all held together.  Currently 5pm EDT US, should have something right after dinner.

Stay tuned.

The Speedstah Guy from Massachusetts

Is this what you are referring too.  I know when I reconditioned my pans with new pans - I cut the jack attachment piece off the new pans.  They would no longer work and only had 3 spot welds.  Your fiberglass body should have a hefty steel subframe.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I knew my description was lacking And my first picture is not great. The piece I’m talking about is seen here circled in red. It connects the pan to the torsion tube. On mine it’s cut off.

@brsturges

Dinner was delayed because our guests are delayed.  Here are some photos of my pan-based CMC:

Passenger side, just above the torsion bar cover.

Same side a little more towards the front.

Around that same corner, showing the outside floor support, torsion cover to the left.

Below:  Rear of the floor pan looking forward.  The floor pan drops onto the central tunnel lip and rear of the seat well and then gets welded in.

Moving to the driver's side, showing the floor pan sitting on the lip at the rear of the seat well.  BTW, there is no "lip" for the floor pan on the outside of the pan.  It sits on a lip at the front on the Napolean Hat, then along the lip of the central tunnel and then across the back on the lip of the rear of the seat well.

I have a rear anti-sway bar (on an IRS pan) but that bulge at the top is the rear of the seat well.

I lift right under the torsion bar cover so this is the driver's side looking forward.

Same side, looking right at the bottom of the torsion bar cover.

Sure hope this helps!  If you need any other shots, I'll leave it on the lift til tomorrow morning.

Just saw your last post and will get that angle after dinner.

Gordon, appreciate the pics. Your chassis has the piece in place. It’s circled here in red.

Well, OK!  Do you need any other photos/angles or are you good for now?   Want to get down off the lift for a C&C tomorrow.   😉

No more pics needed. Now just need some ideas on how to create another attachment from the tube to the pan since mine is missing. Hoped maybe someone else has had to deal with this and had the silver bullet solution

@brsturges

OK, now that I know what I'm looking for, that support for the rear of the floor pans is the very bottom part of the torsion bar end casting - the part that the end cover bolts thread into.  It looks like it's sole purpose is to hold up the outer rear corner of the floor pans.  It is shaped like a "U" to accept the pinch weld where two pieces of metal (the rear wings just ahead of the torsion bar tube and the floor pan rear edge) come together.  Better close-ups follow:

Looking in at the end cap casting from the wheel and that big support tooth.

Next, another shot of the same piece with better lighting, which shows some rust clouding telling me that something is moving where the sheet metal touches the cast support.  Something I'll be looking at before I take it down off the lift, so thanks for asking for photos.

Another shot, looking from the driver's side about mid-ships showing the same rust cloud.  Looks like a good candidate for a prolonged spray with PB Blaster!  It also shows the very rear of the floor pan in the left half of the photo.

Below, the same part(s) on the Driver's side.  Notice, no rust cloud but a slightly different look to the parts, but basically the same part stack-up holding the rear of the floor in place.  

Now that I see what we're dealing with and what's up in there, I would go along with your earlier point that you could fabricate a hanger for the floor pan pinch weld to hold everything up.  There is no bearing inside of the torsion bar casting.  The torsion bar attaches at the center of the car chassis on one end, and the other end goes through a rubber bushing, then the end casting, then the spring plate, then through another rubber bushing and into the end cap.  You'll have to be careful to pace your welds or remove the rubber bushings and torsion bar before you weld a different support to the tube to  prevent them from melting from weld heat.  

If you remove the torsion bars, remember that they are left and right, calibrated in one direction only.  They may look identical, but put them back on the same side as where you removed them.  If you take them out, I would toss in new rubber bushings coated in talcum powder, too.

Hope this helps!

All good points. Appreciate the input Gordon.

I don't think I'd worry about the "hook".   I bet it is some alignment piece used in the factory to ensure all is welded straight.  You didn't say what kit you had - but near all pan based that I've seen (IM/CMC/FF/VS/JPS) use the massive steel subframe that I showed above (from a burned out Speedster).  When you are mating the body to the pan use lots of silicon sealer and maybe extra bolt in that area.  There is an attachment point to rear torsion assembly just above that point.  From rust on Gordon's, hook isn't even welded to anything - just a perch.

Since I found those metal-on-metal rust clouds up in there, I later got up in there with an aerosol can of PB Blaster to blast penetrating oil everywhere, then this morning I re-blasted both areas with an aerosol lithium grease.  Don’t really know what I’m doing - Just winging it, really, but it certainly can’t hurt on a 50+ year old pan.  Everything else may rust out, but those two areas will look Mahvelous.

Thanks Wolfgang and Gordon. I don’t even have a kit yet. Still shopping around/looking for a good opportunity on an old CMC kit.

Maybe I am over thinking this and the body subframe will solidify everything nicely when bolted up. Just figured tying the outer edge of the pan to the torsion tube wouldn’t be a bad thing for rigidity.

@brsturges wrote: "Maybe I am over thinking this and the body subframe will solidify everything nicely when bolted up."

That pretty much sums it up.  The body subframe is pretty robust, being a 2" X 4" box frame, and it gives everything a lot of strength.  Check Wolfgang's frame photo up above and you'll see how robust it is.

@brsturges - Just a follow-up:

The weather finally turned a bit cooler here (central Massachusetts) and I took Pearl out for a ride and I gotta tell yah - After I found that rust cloud on the pan hanger and moved some of the sheet metal around and blasted everything with 20X the amount of penetrating oil than was really needed, the annoying, random creak I've been chasing for the past 20+ years is GONE!

In the future I'll be blasting/greasing it at the start of each driving season, just in case.

Thanks for asking for info on that pan hanger.  I never would have found this otherwise!

Oh man, Gordon! What a great ending to this inquiry! It just goes to show you that helping a random dude out on the internet can end up helping yourself out a bit. I love a good feel good news story

Brad

@Gordon Nichols posted:

@brsturges - Just a follow-up:

The weather finally turned a bit cooler here (central Massachusetts) and I took Pearl out for a ride and I gotta tell yah - After I found that rust cloud on the pan hanger and moved some of the sheet metal around and blasted everything with 20X the amount of penetrating oil than was really needed, the annoying, random creak I've been chasing for the past 20+ years is GONE!

In the future I'll be blasting/greasing it at the start of each driving season, just in case.

Thanks for asking for info on that pan hanger.  I never would have found this otherwise!

Hey Gordon they do the same with knees...inject a bit and your cushions works for a long time.

@IaM-Ray posted:

Hey Gordon they do the same with knees...inject a bit and your cushions works for a long time.

I got two about a year apart back when I was working. Haven’t needed on since ~2015.