Trunk Floor, Frame Rails and Spring Perches !! Going to be here a while !!

[Canadian1968]

Well I have finally found the time, place, and money to replace just about the entire rear end of my 1968 Dodge Charger.  Without getting into a long story,  lets just say the trunk was in need of SERIOUS help!! I knew once I got into it i would find more.   So orded were 2 new frame rails, 2 new rear spring perches and a new trunk floor.

I know AMD is best stuff out there, but unfortuantly i don't have AMD money for this many peices.  I went with Goodmark instead.  All parts ordered ther was about $450 difference.

The only problem I have run into so far is the left hand spring perch was just plain wrong!! In order to make this part fit i will have to pull it part and realign it correctly to make it fit.  All other pieces were a great fit though!.  The price of saving a few bucks I guess.

Here are a few pictures as I started the tear down of the trunk. There had been patch, over patch with a pop-rivet gun ( grandfather  ) With all that removed the floor was swiss chesse !!

[Canadian1968]

pic

[Canadian1968]

Out came the floor , Now I could see just how bad it all was !!! It rotted from the inside out.

Apparently a few mice still found it good place to build a nest ... 

[Canadian1968]

Everything out, New parts ready to go in!!

[Canadian1968]

Let the welding begin!!

[Ghoste]

Nice start.  On the plus side, I've seen people starting with worse, especially in Canada.  Good luck. 

[MxRacer855]

Nice thread Canadian1968! This is the exact process that I have to undergo. We spoke a little about it before. When your done, could you give me a rough estimate of how much you spent in parts to do this?

Jeff

[MxRacer855]

Hello Canadian1968,

Turns out I might have no choice but to replace my driver's side rear perch before I drive my car again. After I cleaned it up and removed a lot of the dead, un-supported metal, this is what I was left with...

[Canadian1968]

Hmm looks like you still have a a lot of undercoat on there . But what little you can see looks pretty crusty !! If your jus gonna rip it out regardless don't worry a out cleaning it off . But if you get bored and what to see how bad it is , a little propane torch and a scraper is the easiest way I found to get the bulk of the undercoat off! After that you can use just about any good auto degreaser or just plain mineral spirits / painter thinner will leave it squeaky clean!!

[MxRacer855]

Thanks Canadian1968. That's what I'll do then to start removing a lot of the undercoat. It's completely roached out. Unfortunately, that perch seems to be worse than it looks in the picture. the more I uncover, the more I realize how much decay there truly is. Maybe I can clean off the entire area and just get away with carefully cutting the perch out without too much damage to the surrounding areas and install a new one from AMD to hold until I replace all of the body/chassis metal.

Jeff

[Canadian1968]

There is no real clean way to take that perch out unfortunately . Especially if surrounding parts are rusted as well. As you already told yourself if your goin to do it, do it right! Trying to just bandage the part right now will only hurt you in the end.

My parts total was $1300 that two rails, two perches, trunk floor and trunk brace.

I will post up a few more pictures soon

[MxRacer855]

I agree. I just wish the money was readily available. where did you get all of your parts from for that price? And yes, I would love to see more pics as they come! 

[Canadian1968]

I got my parts threw auto body specialties . They display AMD parts on their site but if you call you ask for goodmark pieces. I talked to Bryan.  I had my parts shipped to a pick up location in michigan. Had to pay tax coming back over the bordered but still saved myself a ton of cash doing it that way.

The absolute final total I think with taxes was like 1400.

[MxRacer855]

That sounds like a great deal for such a good amount. I just need to buckle down and get the cash to do this. Thanks for all of your help! Can't wait to see pics!   

Jeff

[Canadian1968]

Just think, how many beautifully restored chargers there woudl be if parts were even half the price they were !!. Unfortuantley that is not the case, and it can be hard for people to some up with the cash to build their dreams !. I look at it this way though,  the money you put into the car is only goin to increase its value ( in most cases )  Its goin to be safer , and you will get to enjoy it more when it is done.

Here are a few more pictures of my project. A very rough test fit of the passanger side,  and shot of the rear end that I cleaned up and and new brake lines for.

[Canadian1968]

Here is a picture of the drivers side frame rail.

This was from the start of the project, I was trying to see how bad the rest of the rail was. As you can see , this part of the rail looks mint !! Not even the slightest rust spot.  As soon as we ripped up the floor though it was a different story. The inside was completely rotted. So becareful when you are checking the condition of the rest of your rail, perch. Just becuase its nice on the outside, does not mean its good on the inside !!!  If you put your finger or maybe a coat hangers up threw one of the holes in the fram, and you can pull out chunks of rust and debris, its probably not a good sign !

[MxRacer855]

You're doing an absolutely beautiful job!  The fitment on that passenger side trunk floor section looks perfect from the angle of the picture (and you sold it short by labeling it a "rough fit"!). I can only imagine the finished product will be perfect!

I'm currently in the process of stripping as much undercoating as I possible can off od the wheel wells and bottom of the car. There seems to be a lot of clay down there which is providing the illusion of rust. But there really isn't much rust at all outside of the floor and perches. Once I clear most of it, I will take a wire wheel to as much as I possibly can to break it down to the barest metal I possibly can.

Even though I don't have a "before" pic... I can take a few of the stage I'm currently at in hopes of improving them ten fold when I'm finished. I'm just going to try and spray the entire undercarriage black to look good. Like I said though, with the least amount of undercoating I can possibly leave on. I'm by no means going to drive the car in the elements, so a good quality rattle can paint job to the bottom of the car should suffice. I've even seen an extremely mild black undercoating that comes out of a paint can available at auto stores. That might be worth while since it provides the protection and can be removed with ease when the time comes (at least much easier that actual undercoating).

Jeff

[72Charger-SE]

Looking Great!!!   Keep on Keepin On!!!

[Canadian1968]

Well a lot progess has been made.

Both rails are completely weldede in, as well as both perches.   In order to make the drivers side perch line up we had to do quite a bit of customizing to the piece. BUt our measurements are now 1/8th out when X measured.

Crossmember is welded in and we have just prepped the passanger side floor to be welded in. 

Then our welder died............ hahahh   Will post some pictures tomorrow.

[fy469rtse]

Great job , always the way , funny how your tools die just when your using them or halfway through the job , 

[Canadian1968]

Here are a couple more progress pictures. Sorry they are just taken wiht my Iphone.

Drive side rail , completely welded in.  Floors being fitted, and drivers side ready to be welded in.

[Canadian1968]

A few more pics

[Canadian1968]

and more

[NMike]

do these come complete like this or do you have to buy the mount separately?

[Canadian1968]

No the rail and perch are individual . I just placed them on the floor together for the picture

[MxRacer855]

A few more pics

On this top picture, where the frame rail butts up to the tail... did you replace that as well? it looks brand new. Mine is rusted out in that spot and I cannot tell what it is... tail panel? Rear valance?

[Canadian1968]

If you want to find that piece is common refered to as rear crossmember.  Yes I did replace that , but we just made our own piece. We just made a piece the correct width, and added a lower and upper lip. Lower to weld to the rear valance of the car, and upper lip is what the floor actually sits on across the back of the trunk.  Along with providing mounting surfaces for the rear of the frame rail, as well as the floor. This piece also has the holes, that your gas straps hang from.  On the original piece, the area around the holes for gas straps are double up wiht an extra piece of metal to hold the weight of the tank.  Mine was in good enough shape we seperated the piece off the back and then used that as a template to cut the holes in the new piece of metal that we made.

A repo part will run you around $250. You dont' see this piece at all unless you are looking for it. Its far from original but  I decided to fab up my own piece that did the same job for $40.

I wil try to get some better pictures for you .

[MxRacer855]

Thank you! Mine is completely rusted out and I'm looking for solutions to fix it.

[MxRacer855]

When you replaced that piece (rear crossmember), did you have to cut out or remove any of tail panel or rear valance? Here's where my project evolved to currently... I'm replacing my trunk floor (two piece), trunk floor brace, and rear spring perches. So far the frame rails look good,  so I'm hoping that I don't have to replace those. There's a little bit of material that got eaten away inside of them, but it doesn't look bad.
I would love to replace that rear crossmember as well, but I don't want to have to remove that rear valance or tail panel. The paint is food on the body. Can I replace it and salvage the body?

[Canadian1968]

I snapped a few pictures, its kind of hard to see it now with the floor in.

But what we did was make two piece and had them join in the center, same as the floor itself.  When we got the corners, things were a little hacked up from a previous job someone else had done. There were some existing tabs that the orginal member would have been connected to. We simply attched our new piece to it.   Then in order to connect the rear member, to the side gutter panels of the trunk we made corner pieces and welded them into place. 

All pictures are before and clean has been done. Welds will be ground down flush, all corners and seams will be seam sealed to make sure no exhuast gas is able to come up threw the floor and obviously keep out moisture and dirt.

Let me know if you have any questions the pictures may be confusing

                                                                       

[Canadian1968]

one more

[Canadian1968]

Well everything is in!!!  It took us just over 60 hour to do this job.

Very happy with how the install went, other than the drivers side spring perch all the parts fit very well ( goodmark )  Now I have to finish griding the welds down, a light skim of putty over a few of the  welds the we needed to pull down to make flush contact with frame rails. You can see these are mainly only on the passangers side rear of the floor where it curves up towards the back seat. With our edges lined up this part of the floor just plain didnt' match frame rail in this area only.

Then a coat of epoxy, seam seal, and I am going to finish with bedliner.

[Canadian1968]

more

[Canadian1968]

Update:  The floor is 100% done  Epoxy , seam sealed and Bedliner. This thing will never rust again !!

The bedliner may not be for everyone but I am happy wiht how it turned out. Its tough as hell, will give stone protection on the underside and just gives a uniform appearance not to mention the corrosion protection.  I just Gator Guard Brand for anyone that is curious  ( epoxy based )

[Canadian1968]

bedliner

[72Charger-SE]

I Like it !!!   Looks Great!   Awesome job... . Keep up the progress!!!   

[MxRacer855]

Great job! Looks durable and appealing.