Removing Rusty Firebird Floorboards & Restoration

In addition to replacing the rear quarter panels on the Firebird and other older cars, the floorboards are another top sheet metal component that needs to be restored.

For this post, I just wanted to write about removing the old floorboard with some tips and then I will write a follow up post about welding in the new sheet metal.

You can purchase sections or full floorboard replacements. All our floorboard metal was fairly rusty so we decided to replace the whole thing except the front seat supports. I first cut out most of the rusty floorboard with the seat support in tact for the front and back seat areas. This was cut with a SawZall metal cutting blade (aka reciprocating saw).

I placed the new floorboard panel over the open area so that it overlapped and then marked the edges so that it lines up better while estimating about a half inch overlap. This makes it easier if the sheet metal overlaps a little bit for positioning while welding. Then just cut out the sheet metal along those lines until everything fits in perfectly.

Removing Seat Support from Floorboard

With the old floorboard removed, you will need to separate the seat supports unless you decided to replace them with new ones. Ours were still solid metal with little rust on them so I removed them and welded them back on. You can remove them with a hammer & chisel which I did for one of the floorboards until I remember we had something better.

Or you can use a air powered hammer chisel which probably saved me an hour worth of work and frustration as you can see in the photo on the left.

The seat support is on the left of the picture and the old rusty floorboard is on the right.