It's time to replace the floor pans on my 68 convertible. The front and rear on both sides is needing replacement. The area under the seat frames looks ok. Given the condition of the other areas I don't trust that they are good. I will have a restoration shop do the replacement. The frame will be off during the replacement and my body man wants to do a full pan replacement. I am aware of the additional braces in the convertible. What is the best stategy for removal and installation of the support braces that attach to the pans under the seat bracket. The X brace bolts to these braces. It appears that the positioning of the braces is critical.

There is no need to remove the big K member from the convertible. The pans are carved out only for the amount of bad sheetmetal that needs to be replaced. The total areas on both sides don't have to have the exact same amount of pans removed.
For a full pan, you need to drill out the seat platforms so that they come apart in two pieces. The seat platforms weren't painted underneath, so they will need to be cleaned up from surface rust.
If a partial pan or half pan from under the seat platform back to the rear foot area is cut out, the front joint can be concealed by the K-member. In that case you would only remove the big part of the seat platform and leave the smaller part that holds the caged square nut. You could even slice up this top part of the seat platform so that you leave the front 1/3 of the top of the platform spot welded to the smaller lower piece, then weld the original 2/3's back in later.
A recent post with more details: http://www.camaros.net/forum/Forum3/HTML/003467.html

[This message has been edited by bonecrusher67conv (edited 10-29-2002).]

Bonecrusher, thanks for the response. I'm new to the hobby and need a great deal of advice as I go through the process. I am doing as much of the work as possible given limited space and resources. This site and people like you willing to share your knowledge are a tremendous help.

bonecrusher, I am replacing partial pans on my 69 SS396 convertible. I would like to remove only the top portion of the seat platform. (I am striving for as close to original look as possible by leaving as much of the original, good metal as possible). My question is; can the top portion of the seat platform remain attached at the tunnel by cutting all the other spot welds and carefully bending the top platform to reach the bad floor pan? I would like to butt-weld the new rear floor in this area on the passenger side. I did this on the drivers side without removing the top platform and it was a pain, although the result was rewarding. The only reason for removing the upper platform is to reach the flat area of the pan where it is easier to weld/finish without the ridges. (looks cleaner from the underside. Your input is appreciated.

Hi Shelbydog
I'll go out and look at my bare pans and see. My gut feeling is you'd be better off removing the 2/3 of the platform, because the platform metal if far thicker than the floor pan. The platform metal will be a real pain to deform and straighten back out if left attached. So, if you bend the platform up, you will probably start stretching and deforming the tunnel sheetmetal. If you are lucky you might get the tunnel metal beaten back into shape.

How about cutting an L-shape in the upper seat platform? Where you leave 6" of the upper platform attached above the subframe nut and then make a 90 degree turn and also leave about 2" of platform attached to the tunnel. Maybe taper this cut near the tunnel where it starts out 2" wide toward the front and narrows to 1/2" where it attaches at the rear of the platform.

I gotta do something on this front as well. My floors are good, but the previous owner of the car had the front pan replaced because they were "all dented up" The result is terrible looking from under the car, but great looking from the top with the carpet removed, alot of seam sealer was used between the k member and the floor, and the job looks all together hacked out... I do not know where to go from here...
I'll probobly get a repro floor and start from scratch... any ideas on brands???

Best of luck