1967 Dart trunk area floor pan question

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VintageRacer67

VintageRacer67

1967 Dart GT 318/Auto
Joined
Mar 12, 2021
Messages
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Location
Orange County, CA
Hey FABO. I’ve got my rear end out to swap to an 8 3/4, so I decided to pull my gas tank and weld some patches into my trunk area while I’m at it. My ‘67 Dart is surprisingly solid through out, I’m pretty lucky. However the worst rust on the whole car seems to be in the trunk.

I can easily find a whole new trunk pan, but there is a metal panel just to the front of the vehicle that it attaches to. That’s rusted pretty badly and I don’t even know what that section is called. It seems to be a filler panel between the trunk floor pan and the “under rear seat floor” (that the shocks mount to). A picture is worth a thousand words, so let me post a few.
Photo 1: under the car with the gas tank removed.
Photo 2: close up of the damage, you can see where the two other pans attach to it.
Photo 3: damage on the front (towards engine) passenger side of the trunk.
Photo 4: damage on the front driver side of the trunk. Note it’s forward of the hole for the fuel filler neck.
Photo 5: replacement trunk pan. Notice this pan stops short of the area with most of the rust damage.

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

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AAndrews said:
Is this what you are looking for?

View attachment 1715898668 View attachment 1715898669
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Upper Rear Crossmember / Shock Mount - 67-76 Dodge Plymouth A-Body
Part# 860-1067 Retail: (USD) $249.99
Availability: In Stock View attachment 1715898672

Condition: New

Weight: 6.00 lbs

Shipping Dims: 8.00"L x 5.00"W x 35.00"H
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Hmm. I don’t know for sure. It’s hard to tell from the picture. Thanks, I’ll have to see if I can do some more research on that part to verify.

Hopefully someone who has replaced this part will jump on and clarify things.
 
The upper piece that's rusted out is the back part of the transition pan just forward of the trunk floor. Your best bet is to patch it if you can. It's a hell of a job to replace it.
 
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moparmat2000 said:
The upper piece that's rusted out is the back part of the transition pan just forward of the trunk floor. Your best bet is to patch it if you can. It's a hell of a job to replace it.
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Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I’ll have to try to patch it. I’m not going to replace everything there since everything else is perfectly solid.

I’ll cut out the bad sheet metal this weekend,
see what I have to work this. Then I’ll try to fabricate some patches out of spare sheet metal I have.
 
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I fabricated a flat sheet in the center for my 67 barracuda that lapped in at the above mentioned crossmember and using a panel flanger I made the stock seam where it meets the trunk floor. This is how I repaired the center section. The outer sections were not rotted, so no issues there for me to mess with.
 
moparmat2000 said:
I fabricated a flat sheet in the center for my 67 barracuda that lapped in at the above mentioned crossmember and using a panel flanger I made the stock seam where it meets the trunk floor. This is how I repaired the center section. The outer sections were not rotted, so no issues there for me to mess with.
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Moparmat2000, thank you for sharing your experience with me on this. I’m a rookie at this stuff, but I’m very handy and motivated to learn. That’s basically been the whole theme of my Dart project.

I think I understand what you did. You don’t by chance have a picture of your end result do you? I’m glad you mentioned the panel flanger, I was already thinking I might need to get one.
 
Picture of actual trunk floor w red line showing you as a reference what the drawings will be. This is how I did my 67. Its all ground down, so an actual picture of it will not help. Pic #2 is a cut section of what you have. Pic #3 shows a flat sheet that has a joggle or flange where it meets the trunk floor. In this spot you can rosette weld it in position at the holes where you drilled out the spot welds. At the forward position, you only cut through the transition pan going straight across, do NOT cut the crossmember. This leaves a small ledge to allow your new patch panel to sit flush with the transition pan. So when you do weld it all together and grind it down, nobody will ever know it was patched. I used 19 gage or .043" steel sheet. I hope the pix clarify things. Pretty straightforward repair in the center. The pieces on the sides where the framerails attach, you will have to make up some small patches for those. Neither of mine needed those patched up.

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moparmat2000 said:
Picture of actual trunk floor w red line showing you as a reference what the drawings will be. This is how I did my 67. Its all ground down, so an actual picture of it will not help. Pic #2 is a cut section of what you have. Pic #3 shows a flat sheet that has a joggle or flange where it meets the trunk floor. In this spot you can rosette weld it in position at the holes where you drilled out the spot welds. At the forward position, you only cut through the transition pan going straight across, do NOT cut the crossmember. This leaves a small ledge to allow your new patch panel to sit flush with the transition pan. So when you do weld it all together and grind it down, nobody will ever know it was patched. I used 19 gage or .043" steel sheet.

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Wow, these are excellent sir. Thank you for taking the time to help me out, this is exactly what I needed.
 
Your very welcome. Glad to help. I use a pneumatic panel flange maker I got from harbor freight. These are about $38 and worth having if you plan to do a fair amount of metal work.

You can butted it on 3 sides, then overlap spot weld it where it joins the trunk floor, and once ground down and seam sealed, nobody would ever know it was ever patched
 
For small holes like that, that don’t appear super thin around the edges, i’ll wind a piece of tig filler rod close to the hole size, put a piece of copper behind it and zap with the mig. That is also how I like to fix vinyl top spots where the corner under the trim gets split. I bend to contour and buzz away
 
TheGrateRonzini said:
For small holes like that, that don’t appear super thin around the edges, i’ll wind a piece of tig filler rod close to the hole size, put a piece of copper behind it and zap with the mig. That is also how I like to fix vinyl top spots where the corner under the trim gets split. I bend to contour and buzz away
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That idea works great on small holes. I have a weld spoon that's brass that I can stick behind small holes and just zap em shut. The ones he has on the sides are where the framerails are though. I don believe the OP has access to the backside there because the framerails are in the way.
 
VintageRacer67 said:
Hey FABO. I’ve got my rear end out to swap to an 8 3/4, so I decided to pull my gas tank and weld some patches into my trunk area while I’m at it. My ‘67 Dart is surprisingly solid through out, I’m pretty lucky. However the worst rust on the whole car seems to be in the trunk.
Had the same issue with my 67, was able to purchase a section from a member who wasnice
I can easily find a whole new trunk pan, but there is a metal panel just to the front of the vehicle that it attaches to. That’s rusted pretty badly and I don’t even know what that section is called. It seems to be a filler panel between the trunk floor pan and the “under rear seat floor” (that the shocks mount to). A picture is worth a thousand words, so let me post a few.
Photo 1: under the car with the gas tank removed.
Photo 2: close up of the damage, you can see where the two other pans attach to it.
Photo 3: damage on the front (towards engine) passenger side of the trunk.
Photo 4: damage on the front driver side of the trunk. Note it’s forward of the hole for the fuel filler neck.
Photo 5: replacement trunk pan. Notice this pan stops short of the area with most of the rust damage.

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

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Had the same issue with my 67, posted my issue in the Wanted forum and was able to have a Member respond and cut out a section from his parts car.
 
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