bmans vette

I have a 75 that I am about to pull the body on for full frame off.
Has anyone added a metal floor panel to reinforce the floor on one of these earlier C3s with fiberglass floor?
If so, what did you use?
I did the customary search for this but found nothing.
Txs for any help or suggestions.

Dennis

The13Bats

I never did this on a corvette as I like fiberglass so I need not worry about rust, so this is just food for thought,

In my ACVW world most had rust in the floor pans and in the kit cars it was common to drop the floor lower to get more head room some kit cars were made for small people,

anyway with vw's rust was so bad that aftermarket houses sold replacement floor panels and while many were purists and used metal more in the kit cars and buggy world used the fiberglass,

I am thinking gm made sure fiberglass floors were good enough for production but if I recall correctly you are going for a road race car so the key to a metal floor making it stronger would be where you tie it in at....

Easy Mike

Why do you need the reinforcement? It's a lot easier to patch/repair fiberglass than to work with metal.

Sacred Steel

I wouldn't put metal floors over the fiberglass floor. They probably wouldn't fit right anyway. Fiberglass is strong by itself. If you want to reinforce the floors, in my opinion it would be better to lay a couple of layers of mat down with some good resin.

Luce

While I have always worried about a errant piece of rebar from a broken up curb or some other constantly present road construction debris poking me in my brown eye, I wouldn't try to cut out the glass for a metal floor either.

augiedoggy

Yes I agree here, I have the fiberglass floors in my 74 and on my old ACVW kit car It had metal floor pans but they werent used per say due to the fiberglass floor panels on the gazelle body being so stiff and heavy...

If your fiberglass floors are rotted or damaged I would be more inclined to just repair and beef them up than trying to add steel reinforcements.

augiedoggy

I think this would be just as likely to happen with the sheet metal as it would with the thicker fiberglass used on the floors.. just saying ..Ive never heard of something like this happening. (unlikely it would make it through the seat anyway which has metal under the support areas.)

bmans vette

THANKS for all the input.
Several layers of mat may just be the answer.
I will be converting seats to C5 also so any mods to make that work could be addressed with the fiberglass reinforcement.

Bman

ignatz

You didn't answer what you wanted the reinforcement for, but you might look into kevlar cloth for its ability to stop debris. And for that you might want to reinforce from the bottom.

Richard454

I didn't do it to the floor...but did use some perfed metal to really stiffen up the custom center console I built. Did a great job holding the 90º angles w/o cracking.

I put it between the layers of glass. Very rigid and the brackets mounted to it held really well. Did add some weight.

bmans vette

Reinforcement question was just because fiberglass seems so thin in that area.
Txs for the Kevlar suggestion.
I am going with sidepipes so it was not really about exhaust heat, just more concern about one day stepping thru 40 yr old floor.

bmans vette

Nice.
Txs for info.
I'll keep that in mind as I too will be changing dash to fit more gauges. I like the later C3 dash look with glove box more so than the original 75. Will probably add Vintage Air also.

Rcdizy

I'm sure the same piece of rebar would rip through the 20gauge sheet metal floor just as easy as fiberglass

Luce

Yea, but my 2600 lb Cobra has 11 ga floors. And a floor pan is the best place to put the extra weight. And in that car, my sweet little chocolate starfish is only 5" off the ground.

dmaxx3500

unless your going to use 1/2'' plate steel,something that's rod or missle shaped will go right thru a metal floor

and when was the last time you saw/heard of something like this happening?

I can point out 1-2 cases in the last 20 years ive heard of

leadfoot4

I have a question......I though that the 75s went to a metal floor, in order to handle the added heat from the catalytic converters, which were introduced in '75......

bmans vette

Later in that year.
Mine is definitely a 75 and has a fiberglass floor.

'75

75 has a steel plate over the cat converter, but the floor is fiberglass. 76 started the all steel floor.

Aniq. pk

fiberglass seems so thin in that area

v2racing

My 75 has a steel panel fitted over the bottom of the passenger floor. It is a factory piece put there to keep the cat from burning up the floor. It is stamped steel and mimics the shape of the glass floor. I coated the underside with bed liner and unless you're looking for it, you don't notice it. Not the greatest photo, but all I have.

Mike