72 Convert Floor pans

My 72 convertible needs pans front to under the back seat. I need your advice. Several questions:

1. Are full or partial pans the best way to go?

2. If you buy full pans, will they reach all the way back under the rear seats? 

3. Who makes the best pans? 

4. Do you have to take the dash out for full pans? 

5. What do you recommend for sound deadener etc?

6. Any good YouTube videos or tutorials that you recommend?

1: full pan. With a vert, if you need full pans, you're probably also going to need inner rockers, or be doing some patchwork at a minimum. The pans are made for coupe/sportsroof, and you need to either remove the rocker flange, or bend it 180*. Most people I know remove the flange and weld it to the bottom of the inner rocker.

2: No, it stops at the top of the roll at the front of the rear seat. https://www.npdlink.com/product/floor-pan-full-length-rh-correct-part-with/147448?backurl=search%2Fproducts%3Fsearch_terms%3Dfloor%252Bpan%26top_parent%3D200001%26year%3D1971&year=1971

3: I think they all come from the same factory, just be sure you get 71-73 pans, not a generic "65-73" pan. I bought mine when they first came out circa 2002, IIRC they were Goodmark.

4: No, but it makes life easier.

5: Depends on your budget.

6: Google is your friend.

If you are looking for the pan that goes directly under the back seat, when I did mine, I had to get the floor extension from a 68 I believe. A little of hammer work and they fit. Got mine from NPD, link to left hand side below. I replaced both sides of mine and surprisingly, they fit pretty well. The full length floor pans for each side do not extend under the rear seat. The pics of the 1 piece floor pan (entire floor), looks like it does extend under the rear seat though. There are some pretty good videos on here, do a search for "Saturday morning garage", or Qcode351mach, Scott shows how to do the floor pans and a lot more on his site

https://www.npdlink.com/product/extension-rear-floor-pan-lh-correct-style-modify/101599/203500?year=1968

Good luck

Tom

I purchased a vert that had already had the floors repaired. They used the long patches for each side. I think it sucks!!! They were welded in using plug welds around the edges and then sealed so it looks horrible for sure.

I myself am very close to cutting the new pans out and going with a full pan.

I have a friend that has done restorations for 35 years. He tells me it is easier to put in a full pan than to cut out and use the patches. He can by himself do from the firewall to the tail lights in two days.

With a convertible you can get the pan in pretty easy. On some Camaro's with roof he has to split down the tunnel and then butt weld back together. You cannot tell it was cut.

With the convertible the seat platforms and the underside reinforcements of the pans are different so be sure and get the out in as good a shape as you can.

You will need to build you a way to support your body to keep it in alignment. They do sell them already built. If the floors are already really bad the car might need to go on frame machine first to set the frame rails in position.

There are locator holes in the frame you measure from and a great frame jig will save you many many hours of work trying to get everything to fit.

You need to have the ability to have the doors on so you can check before you weld the pan in solid.

Dynacorn is probably the better choice right now. Do not think there is really another out there.

Other member did mention they do not make a pan specific to the convertible. The rocker boxes are different from vert to car with top and flange down the sides is opposite way on vert.

If your floors are gone that is usually the result of leaking cowl allowing water to run into the floor in front and from leaks in the convertible top it rusts out the rear.

I am pretty sure you will need to do the cowl also. I would probably suggest doing floor first then cut the cowl out and replace upper and lower there.

I still feel you are ahead of the game and way less money to look for a great rust free car instead of trying to replace all the panels. Even if there are no holes showing probably 50% of the rocker box is probably rusted away so you loose 50% of the strength. Same with inside the frame rails and such.

The inner front fenders usually rust just behind the shock tower up at the top fender mount.

You also have rust in the torque boxes and the front end of the rocker box below the A posts.

Many builds fail because the task overwhelms the owner and they give up. Any car can be fixed but there is a point that you should not invest the time or money to do so.

Go to the Graverobbers web site. They are near Atlanta Georgia. The do decent work for the money they charge and probably better than any amature can do. https://www.graverobberssheetmetal.com/index.php/custom-frame-jigs

I guess their price list is disabled it would not come up. You can see what a proper jig looks like in some of their pictures. The firebird they are putting together used just the cowl with the VIN# looks like. That is the way the Camaro's and Firebirds go.

You strip the car down and they take it from there and send back with new panels in primer. DO NOT expect it to be perfect there are no perfect repair panels out there. They do the panel replacement not the perfect body work needed for a show car. You will need to massage the panels on the outside if replaced.

Yes there are people that do the whole job but for a 71 - 73 Mustang you can drop $85,000 to $100,000 for a Concourse restoration and it would be worth maybe $30,000.

I encourage anyone to do their own work but be prepared to work lots of dust, cut fingers, broken spot weld cutters and lots of sweat.

The Dynacorn Full Floor Pan One-Piece Coupe/Fastback 1971-1973 has the pan under the rear seat. Probably the way to go, especially if you are replacing the pans under the rear seats. I had to replace one inner rocker and did not use a full floor pan, and needed to bend the lip on the floor pan were it meets the rocker and then weld some long seams along the tunnel.

Lots of work to replace the inner rocker, but there is no better time to do it.