Got quote for floor replacement....your thoughts..

1063 Views 13 Replies 8 Participants Last post by Guest, Mar 23, 2001

bluebeast

Discussion Starter · Mar 22, 2001

I went to get a quote from the only other guy in town that does classic car stuff. I will be replacing both full floor pans, both torque boxes, battery apron, and the front 19" of the passenger frame rail. He quoted me $3000, about 60 hours at $40/ hr. I also need the headliner and the front and rear window seals replaced, which isn't included in the estimate. So is this a ripoff, or does it sound good? All the welding will be ground down, seam sealed, primed and painted to prevent future rust......In his shop he had a 66 coupe that he painted. He owns a 66 Convert. A-Code that is pristine, selling for $11,000, and a 65 coupe he has had since highschool, not selling, though also in pristine shape....Anyway, sorry for the rant....

RJ
68 Diamond Blue Coupe
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dickson

· #2 · Mar 22, 2001

I had the floorpans only replaced in my car for $700. Don't know if that helps - Dickson

1965 GT fastback
There's a fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness" - Dave Barry

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· #3 · Mar 22, 2001

In the same boat here....Having both entire pans done and one torque box repaired for 1200.00 . Hope this helps.

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bluebeast

Discussion Starter · #4 · Mar 22, 2001

I'm only an hour north from you, I might consider driving down there to get it done cheaper, as I don't have $3000 dollars floating around. I only paid that much for the car, hard to believe it will cost that much to replace this stuff. Are you getting it done at a resto shop or a plain paint and body shop?

RJ
68 Diamond Blue Coupe
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Lypheus

· #5 · Mar 22, 2001

This is actually not a big deal ... you just need a grinder, hammer and MIG to do the job ... the parts are fairly cheap too ... I wonder if stripping out your floor and seats, etc... might bring down the cost? Have you asked about that?

I guess the only big thing to worry about is making sure you brace the car so that it does not suffer any structural damage or anything ... anyhow, I did it on my coupe ... it took me about 2 weekends to complete (beginner), and I received a few compliments on the job from ppl who weld for a living.

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1969 Mach 1 ( M-Code)
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Huskinhano

· #6 · Mar 22, 2001

You could buy a nice mig welder, compressor & air tools ect. and have some money left over. Hummmm what to do with all that neat stuff?

Tom
You can do anything you want to......ONCE!
aka "my 66 coupe"
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bluebeast

Discussion Starter · #7 · Mar 22, 2001

I will be taking everything out of it to decrease the manhours on the job. I don't have access to a MIG welder, and I have never welded in my life, I could possibly do the floors, but the frame rail I'm not touching. Did you do any type of welding prior to the floors?.......I will have to see how the opinions go in here....

thanks for the reply

RJ
68 Diamond Blue Coupe
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ken_schall

· #8 · Mar 22, 2001

As someone else noted.... Are you going to do all the so called prep work? pulling seats...carpet..stripping down or we're you just going to drive it in and say "do it"? I think $40.00 and hr isn't to bad ... here in the Northwest, Bodyshops are pushing the $50- 55 an hrs. If you hadn't planned on stripping it down, you might ask them again for a quote doing it that way.....Plus if your not a welder( ?) you might do the grinding and underseal yourself.....every little bit helps.....

Ken
99 GTP
97 Yukon
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azuero

· #9 · Mar 22, 2001

The way I look at it. Ask a lot of questions, even if they appear to be dumb ones. Go to a shop and ask the guys questions. Buy the welder, get some sheet metal from a junk yard and practice cutting and welding. When you get the hang of it, dive in. The guy that is doing it had to learn at some point, and your learning capacities are still functional. Go for it. Read, ask questions, and give yourself an education in auto body metal work. I figure, those guys learned this stuff one day and I know they are no smarter than I am. The key would be to know the tricks. That is what this forum and books and magazines are for. You might see about hiring the guy to stop by and give you a few hours of pointers. Sort of an off site professor job for him. Who knows. I learned computer repair, basic mechanics, road grading and welding this way. This all depends upon whether you even want to do this sort of thing or not.

THE 90/90 RULE OF PROJECT SCHEDULES...
The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of the project takes the other 90%.

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· #10 · Mar 22, 2001

The $3000.00 seems high to me. I'm almost done doing both full length pans myself. The mig is not very hard to learn, but I did take arc welding in high school. I had to have several sheets of plate welded in on the bottom of my house boat last summer, the welder charged me $30.00 an hour.

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'67 Coupe project car (Did I say project car? I meant pile of rust)
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mrgem

· #11 · Mar 22, 2001

Sounds high to me. Most of the posts I've seen quote $800-$1500. You might add, say another $500 for the torque boxes and frame rail. About $2000 would be more like it. It looks like this guy knows he's the only game in town.

Glenn Morgan 66 GT Fastback 351w+toploader

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· #12 · Mar 22, 2001

My resto shop quoted me $750 for both full floors, including parts. The torque box is nothing to put in (I got mine in and welded in probably 2 hours, including splitting the box). I did a front frame rail patch in 4 hours time, including ripping out the old junk, prepping, welding the new patch, sealing, and priming - then a day or so later hit it with some spray can black.

For the work he's doing, 2k would be too high in my opinion. I don't know where you live but labor rates here on body work are about $35 per hour on the high side, $30 average.

Visit my repair page for Repair info, with pictures! http://home.dencity.com/mustangcub

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Mach1Pilot

· #13 · Mar 23, 2001

This past weekend, I asked my restorer about another Mustang job that he might be doing and we got started talking about replacing floor pans and other major undercarriage pieces. He commented that, on a coupe, it's not a bad job but on a convertible you need to take a lot of preliminary measurements and brace the car right to ensure that when the floor pans settle in, the car is straight. He felt that the cost to do a convertible (taking care to do it right) would be $2K. So $3K seems awfully high for a coupe. It may be the guy doesn't want to do them, but will if it's worth his while.

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· #14 · Mar 23, 2001

I've never welded either, and when I saw the rust under the carpet in my convt, I wished that I had taken
welding in shop class in stead of electronics. It cost me $3000 for full floor replacement, inner rockers, and
torque boxes. (and I supplied the parts) But I am happy with it...

The guy that did the work for me, Joe Pluff of Mustangs and More, has had several show winning cars roll out of his shop.

I dont have a lot of money to spend, but some things need to be done right and I knew that I was over my
head.

64.5 convertible (restomod in progress)
sold the COBRA for family sedan (new addition)

I dont need my wifes permission....
I'm not above begging forgiveness!!

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