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

[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.