Floor and trunk rust repair panels

[Soulman]

Hi guys,

Any recommendations on buying new floor repair sections and trunk floor repair sections?

Thanks,

Soul.

[georgem]

Hi Soul,

Try K & K in the US
www.kkmfg.com/catalog.php


cheers

[66andBlue]

... or you can buy them directly from the manufacturer and save on the shipping detour:
http://www.retroteile.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12&Itemid=9&lang=pl

[Soulman]

Many thanks Guys.


Soul.

[dsayars]

Be advised that K&K floor panels require a lot of cutting, reshaping and even flattening and re-bending before the fit. Their front floor panels and firewalls don't even fit each other where they meet without cutting metal from one place, adding metal it to another, and welding it all together. K&K gave me the impression that they had their own fab metal fab guy making these, but they could very well have meant the guy in Poland. 

Also, don't waste money on these two items:

1. Filler panels that make up the undeside of the under-seat crossmember. These are just rectangular pieces of sheet metal with two genle bends in them, both in the wrong place.  Just as easy to make your own.

2. "Frame extensions" that extend the front channel under the front floors. K&K bumps up the thickness of these from the original 16 guage to something more like 12 guage and they're like frying pans. Since if you need them, your front channel has probably also been thinned by rust, it would be impossible te make the weld between thick and thin. I fashioned a pair using 18-guage, since from what I can see, their only purpose is to stiffen the flloor panels. Anything heavier is still just welded to the18-guage floor, so it's no stronger than the floor on impact. Other members: if I'm wrong, can anyone correct me ?

[johndillman]

dsayars -

I have had the same problem with the passenger side firewall/floor intersection.  I thought I was going crazy.  Glad to read this!!  I have made a filler piece to add on the firewall side which should work nicely.  Not hard, but 30 minutes down the drain.  I was just glad my car had enough to measure from!  not sure what I would have done otherwise.  I agree that the supports are a little too thick, but they look like the originals, so I am going with them, and I couldn't make those that well.

John

[Benz Dr.]

Almost all of their rust repair panels are made in Michigan. None of these come painted which is one way you can tell they're US made parts. The guy in Poland makes some stuff for them but they're more like body patch panels and parts like that.

What many people are not aware of is that the factory never supplied floor pans for our cars as repair parts even from new. There are no part numbers or separate items for floor pans in any of my factory dealer's parts books. I suspect that they must have been available through BM dealers but not through the normal channels - I really don't know.

While not perfect, K&K parts are better than nothing or making your own inn most cases and some are just as good as MB for far less. If you have a problem with fitting you should let them know.  In some cases however, they leave a bit of extra metal around the part so you can trim it away and fit it to your application.
 Their floor pans are often much thicker than original. Tim told me a long time ago he felt that MB panels are far too thin and tend to rust out quickly.   

[RobSirg]

You can add me to the brotherhood.

I purchased panels from K&K, SLS and last of all the Polish supplier (for my car and a friends car) and we have experienced the same fitment problems as listed above. About 1 in 3 panels we did not use at all as the rework outweighed starting from scratch. In most cases we now just use parts of the replacement panels to do patch repairs. Is it because these cars were hand made and therefore vary slightly, combined with the odd poor repair over its 45 year life, or just poor manufacture?  In some cases it is clearly poor manufacture as it is very obvious dimensions are out.

I sure hope K&K sills are good as we are about to get into that next.

I regret not buying MB panels but in some cases they are 4 times the price and I feared there may have fitment problems.

If only I knew earlier we would have take the decision to do patch repairs only.

[Benz Dr.]

We replaced the sills on a 230SL recently and they fit well. We drilled one side of the new sill along the entire length the flanges and then the two halves were plug welded back together. This made them fit better but it should be noted that all of the old sill needs to be removed. Even a small piece of old the old sill can mess up how well the replacement fits and it can take several tries to get it perfect.
Make sure you measure the door opening before you start and check all of your measurements before you weld anything together. Any mistakes during this critical process will mean a lot of work to sort out later on.

[ja17]

Replacing a trunk floor properly is an enormous amount of work. Start by removing the fuel tank, the fuel pump, possibly the rear diff. Lots of cutting,  grinding and cleaning before the work can begin. K&K panels are nicely zinc plated (paint-grip material), a little harder to weld, but will be much more corrosion resistant than the originals. Fit is not too bad. If you cannot cope with some mis-fitment  you probably should not be doing this project. Correctly spot welding the panels in place (as original) can be a tedious process. Grind smooth but leave nice dimples as in the original spot welds. Prime and paint with a nice semi-gloss paint, leaving your handiwork visible for inspection if it is good enough to pass as original. I would guess 25 to 40 hours.

[johndillman]

Joe (and everyone) -

Thanks for your thoughts.  You are SO correct on the time to do a trunk floor.  I have mine out and will be going back after blasting.  I was not able to tell before how much gap there was between the outer pieces and the quarters.  Anyone have any thoughts there?  Looked to be minimal with some seam sealer/caulking and no welds to the quarter .. .  Correct??

Also, any thoughts on finishing the zinc coated panels?  It is a nice coating but would I need to do anything special prior to epoxy primer?

Many thanks,

John

[ja17]

The zinc coated panels are treated to accept paint and primer. No preparation needed other than cleaning all grease and dirt off. Grind your welds as needed but sanding and grinding on the zinc metal will only lessen its anti-corrosive properties.
 It seems that the flange on the two side trunk panels, where they meet the rear quarters, is a tight fit. It looks like a thin seal strip ( 2-3mm thick) is used to seal and possibly bond the seam? The heavy factory under-coating/ sound-deadening
material is used on the underside to finish the job after a primer and paint coat. Remember, primers are porous and should be sealed with a color coat before undercoating.

[Shvegel]

I actually bought the seal strip between the trunk floor flange and the rear quarter panel from Mercedes.  It was ridiculously expensive and amounted to a piece of adhesive backed(one side) foam tape.  I would go to a hardware store and buy some foam weatherstrip tape.  I installed it with the backing paper still on and then peeled the paper off in situ then I backed it up on the trunk side with seam sealer and on the bottom with under body sealer(White Gravitex).