Going through the 63 Dart wagon now. Thought the car was basically (aside from rear 1/4's) rust-free. Then while underneath the car, I noticed some rust-through under the drivers pedal. Removed the front carpet, and ka-bam! A large rusted gash-through I had no idea existed. Rusted from the top side, not the bottom. Excellent. Tried to salvage what I could, but in the end, the front pan really needed to be replaced. It's surrounded by rust-free metal, fortunately.

So I ordered a replacement drivers side floorpan from Rockauto.com. Their supplier is Classic2Current Fabrication.

The floorpan arrived, and what I'm looking at is a flat floorpan with some 'finger mold' marks in a few places, but otherwise, just flat with sides that are curled up.

The floorpan in my Dart is not flat, and the 'finger mold' marks in the original floor are deeper and longer than in the repro floor pan. Additionally, the repro floor pan's upper right side does not have the accelerator pedal 'foot pad' molded into it where it would mount, like the original floor has. Call me crazy but to me that's part of the floor pan.

Are all these bends, creases and molded-in spots something a body shop re-creates from the original pan onto the new one? I would have thought it would come fabricated into it.

Let me know what I should expect from the repopp'ed pan vs. what a body shop will do.

Those floor pans are junk. I'd return them. Classic2Current shouldn't even be marketing those as A body floor pans. They're just flat pieces of sheet metal with slight bends on the outside that somewhat mimic the shape of the vehicle.

Check out autobodyspecialists.

http://www.autobodyspecialt.com/cgi-bin ... egory=6044

Some pics of early A floor installs...including the pans you bought. You can really see the difference in quality.

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/sho ... p?t=257186

Compared to the ABS floorpans the ones I bought are junk, that's true.

But I wonder: my front floorpan does not need to be entirely cut-out. Just the front rolled up section.

This floorpan cost around $60. The ABS floorpans cost $120. I would end up discarding more than 1/2 the ABS floorpan as the whole thing isn't needed.

Thinking I may be better off $$$ just keeping the floorpan I have and cutting it up to patch only the section that needs it.

Thoughts?

If it's mainly the flat part I would try and work with it. Just make sure you're going to be happy with the fittament and cosmetics before you start using it. It's not a good feeling when you finish the thing up only to be unhappy with how it looks while it could look nearly perfect for only $60 more.

What is your time worth and how much extra work do you want to do? Personally, I would pay more and get something that actually fit and spend less time futzing with it.