[Alex van de Wetering]

Now for the holes in the floor, as mentioned above we managed to find some Ford floor sections in the scrap pile, so the next step was a trick already shown by the Hammond crew a few years ago......fill the holes with a matching piece of thread plate!

I know it has been discussed on the forum before that the “dot-dash” thread pattern on Ford and Chevrolet was supposedly slightly different, but (at least in this case) I found that they are exactly the same. The only thing I did notice is that there is a difference in size in West-East to North-south....so in one direction the dots are closer to eachother. So, basically I had to check orientation of the replacement sheets and find a section of plate matching in pattern and amount of rust pitting.

I cut a small template from cardboard and used some spray paint to mark the section to be cut. After cutting and trimming I tack-welded the replacement piece from the top, than welded the other side in small sections. Than I used the angle grinder to cut a V-shaped groove in the top, weld it....and than lots of carefull grinding with a angle grinder and (fake) Dremel too. Last step was to cut the excess material from the inside edge around the gearbox.