[DeTomaso] (no subject)

[Daniel C Jones]

> 4.  Lowered floor pans (I'm 6'2" too short for the cockpit)

I installed the drop pans from Marino Perna.  As I understand it, these
were designed by Kirk Evans and he makes them in a couple of different
drops.  Mine were the larger drop (about 3 inches at the rear and maybe
half that at the front).  Understand that you don't give up three inches
of ground clearance with the 3" drop pans.  While the aft part of the
floor pan is 3 inches lower than before but that wasn't the lowest point
of the car.  Still, you'll need to be careful high centering on things
like speed bumps and trailer ramps.  You can see the angle of pans here:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery/album03/pantera_at_bodyshop_005

and a couple of interior shots of the pans are here:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery/album03/Driver_s_Side_Stripped_1
 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery/album03/Passenger_Side_Stripped_1

These are the big pans that cut into both the fore-and-aft and side-to-side
floor pan reinforcements.  This allows for larger seats and permits the seats
to slide fore-and-aft, unlike the drop pans that stay within the boundaries
of the original pan reinforcements.  The pans are flanged on two sides. After
removing the carpet, we made a tape line around the perimeter to use as a
guide.  A cut-off wheel was used to get started then we switched to a Sawzall.
After cutting out the floor with the Sawzall, we had to trim it in a couple of
spots then the pans dropped right in place.  I cleaned all the areas to be
welded with a die grinder and rotary wire brush wheel to ensure a clean weld.
After a bit of hammering, we welded along the entire perimeter of the pan.
You'll need a helper to hold the pan edge flush with the surrounding floor.
The front edge of the pan is shaped so it can be welded to cap off the (now
open) forward section of the longitudinal brace. We capped that off, peened
the leading edge over to form a better welding surface and made filler pieces
(patterned off of cardboard templates) to close off the various gaps (there's
a sizable one around the emergency brake handle and several smaller ones both
inside the passenger compartment and underneath)).  On the bottom side, we
made pieces that tie the pan directly to the fore-and-aft and side-to-side
frame rails.  Oddly, the aft portion of pan wasn't formed by a metal brake.
Instead, it was a separate piece of metal tack welded to the main pan.  Under
load, that portion off the pan deflected so we welded along the entire length
and it became very rigid.  The pans come with a pair (per side) of very stiff
U-channels that are welded to the floor of the pans, stiffening the pan
bottoms and providing a place to bolt the seats to.  Without these stiffeners,
the pans would "oil can" under a heavy load but with them in every thing is
quite stiff.  The pans themselves are of a heavier guage metal than the
original floor.  With every seam welded and the pans tied into the original
frame stiffeners, it doesn't look like I've lost much, if anything, in the
way of rigidity.  Jacking the car on one corner will lift it off the ground
with no sag so it seems quite stiff.  Since you weld in the rails, you can
position them a little closer to the centerline for better alignment with
the steering wheel but this will be limited by the widh of the seat you use.

One other thing to note.  If you have your headliner in (mine is out), the
welder would likely leave smoke stains unless you cover it.  We covered the
doors and dash and disconnected a few wires to the gauge console to swing
it out of the way while welding.  You may also want to cover the windshield
since the grinding and welding sparks can imbed themselves into glass.  Also,
on the bottom side of the welds, you'll need to fill in some gaps with seam
sealer.  I ended up stripping the floor to bare metal and re-painting it. On
the bottom, I stripped off all the old undercoating, painted it and
re-undercoated.

The engine and transaxle are still out of the car so I'm not sure what the
final ground clearance hit will be but I'm 6'5" and 255 lbs and needed all
the drop I could get.  I think the ground clearance on the road will be
acceptable but putting the car on a trailer could be tricky.  I sat in the
car to steer and brake when we rolled the car off the trailer and was told
there wasn't much clearance.  With the engine and transaxle back in, it will
likely be low enough to scrape.  The ramps on that particular trailer are
fairly short and I think my buddy Eric's trailer has longer ramps plus he
keeps a set of boards to make the approach angle even shallower so hopefully
I'll be okay there.

Dan Jones