home made low buck 1957 trunk pan

i finally got around to do some work on the "ole blue" 57 chevy sedan so instead of kicking out the cash and buying a repoped trunk pan i decided to build it from 18 gauge and yes its was a horrible night mare working with 18 gauge its almost to heavy for my tools to work with but i think it turned out ok im think of doing a tech on it but im not sure if you guys think it is worth the trouble or not but here is a before and after it looks good with the seam sealer and paint now but still its kinda frankinstin but oh well its strong as heck i put in 2 4''wide 1/4 thick about 25''long plate a under neath to strenght it up they will be between the gas tank anyway but no oil can or nothing

 

I think you did an awesome job. I'm all for low buck, however someone will probably try to burst your bubble any minute now.

 

Looks like it will work fine! good work

 

I trying to do a low buck resto on my '37 Buick did the same thing. I found a place that makes all of the panels I needed but I would have had to cough up over $2K for the ones I needed. Even if I had that kind of money it's $2K I could use on something else.

I also used 18ga metal but I couldn't form beads but on have very slight oil canning. I'm going to cover the inside of the truck and store the spare on the floor so it won't matter.

 

i figured i would get alot of bad criticism but i didnt care about that i mean i can cover it with carpet and it will look really nice. the way i look at a car is that if your taking some thing thats been rotting or needs restored and you are working on it and making progress that awesome it better than leaving it behind the house in the barn and lieing to your self and procrastinating saying "yeah im going to fix her up" and that goes on for ten years or more.

bobj49f2 i bet that as a lot cheaper than 2k and and you can civer it with carpet it will look just as nice

 

Whatever keeps the weather out and your shit in otta work.

 

Good job lottsa guys would be too intimadated by the rot, and would have farmed it out at big $ or never have even bought the car...you are one step closer to havin her on the road !

 

Tremendous job. Yes 18 is rough, but you did ok.

Look at it this way...

Not only did you get the job done rather well, you now have a boatload of experience to tackle something like this or larger in the future!

You cant buy that

 

Great job, Seems all the patch panels , floor boards and the like are getting crazy expensive...600. to fill a 35/36 Ford coupe roof is out of site, I just purchased a full 4 x 8 sheet of 18 gauge sheet metal for 56.00..That is 32 square feet all most enough to do all my floor boards...if I bought all the repo floorboards it would be over a thousand dollars...If you want you can make/save yourself a lot of money in a weekend . when your rebuilding / saving an old car, who cares if the floorboards are perfectly to factory specs, gonna cover them suckers up anyway...keep on keepin on !

 

great job,you do what you got to do in these times ,i had 150.00 in mine ,if people dont like it ,dont look.

 

Sure if this was a restoration site, I would understand bashing..but this isn't. It looks like you took care of a serious problem area yourself, at a price that made sense to you.

 

You did a lot nicer job than I have seen a lot of people do on rust repair. At least you welded in the panels instead of screwing them in like I've seen on cars around here. I knew a guy once that used treated 4x4 wood with U-Bolts to repair the trailing arms on his 67 Chevy pickup

 

said well!!!

 

I made mine on my '29 too... (1st time ever) I messed up something, hade to cut it and redo.. tiwce! That took away that crisp clean look I had when I started. I was sweating it, then realized after I insulate and add carpet, now one will ever see it.

 

yes

And yes
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I've definitely seen a hell of a lot worse! How many trunk 'pans' have come from 1-gallon cans (the contents, not the metal)? Nice work, good luck on the 57.

 

wow phastwilliam did a heck of a job on his floors!! they look flawless i would be really happy if mine turned out half as good as yours i didnt have a backing plate on my bead roller so i just drew on the lines and tried to hold it steady the got off a little bit but whatever
now that i got my trunk done im going to do the floors.im going to brace up the door jams for the car doesnt taco then cut them all out and put them in flat no hump under the seat
i never planed on restoring this car it was just parts car untill i founda new frame for it and i looked the car over and seen that it was possible to make solid it sat in the woods for 25 years then i got and kept it for parts for 5 years now its going to be a killer hot rod

thanks every one for the positive comments

 

Great job guys! And remember, it's just metal, if you don't like it, cut it and re-do it! Lippy (Famous for re-doing) in Ks.

 

I'm trying to make floor pans for my 59 Fairlane as well, I noticed a lot of you guys put the "ditches" in the pan. (don't really know how else to explain it) Do you have to do that or can you just leave the metal smooth? If not, how do you add them?

 

Definiatly a good job. Considering what it was you started with, you now have a solid trunk floor!! Keep up the good work...and post the progress as you go.

 

they are called beads a bead roller puts them in the metal for strength or the metal can be flimsy or oil can kinda a lot of your stock pans will have some type of bead design for strength. you can pick them up at a lot of metal fab machine supply shops the cheap vice one i use i got at harbor freight

 

Thanks for the info. The floor pan I'm making is going under the rear seat and the drive line tunnel. Do you think something like that would need beads? I bought 16 gauge sheet metal btw. Thanks for any advice.

 

I think it looks great! Times are tough now and funds for most mostly used to keep a roof over your head and our familes fed.
I think making it yourself is the old school way of hot rodding.

 

Span any distance with just about any flat panel (no crown) made of sheet metal and it is going to oil can if you don't bead or gusset it.

Don't think you can afford the equipment to bead panels? You need a chunk of hardwood as long or longer as your would be panel with a groove routed in it, and enough "C" clamps to hold it to the sheet metal. Rounding the ends (dome) of three or four inches of the right diameter round rod (keeps it from marring your sheet metal) to fit in the groove with your sheet metal wrapped around it, and a piece of 1/4" plate about 2 1/2" X 10" to welded to it for a handle (and hit with the three pound sledge you'll using) makes the beading tool to use with your hardwood die. Then just grab a felt tip marker and your measuring equipment and have at it.

There was a thread here on the Hamb a while back showing a guy making beautiful panels with little more than this.

 

Here is a good tech for many of you. You dont need a bead roller to do professional looking work

Enter Da Tinman

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=435411&highlight=tinman

 

Well done!! I like it

 

Lookin' good!

 

I made my trunk panel and a couple floor boards out of a chev astro van roof ribbed for your pleasure. Then crushed the rest of the van after stripping anything usable.

 

I can say from recent experience you are better off having made your own panels. I bought the overpriced "best" panels about a year ago for my '56 Chevy. What a waste. All that money and we still had to re-from nearly every panel.

 

A friend made one for his car by using the roof panel from a van. The ditches were stamped into it , with the correct shaping of the panel it looked factory.
That would eliminate your oil canning effect.