Well the belly pan is basically off of the ’67 now, but still needs to be dragged out from under the trailer! It went fairly smoothly, but unfortunately will need to be completely replaced as there were a lot of severely damaged spots that go way beyond simple patch jobs. The entire process took probably 2-3 hours from start to finish including the banana wraps, but just spread over many days since I typically have an hour here and there to work on it and some of that time is always taken up with setup and cleanup. It was so nice to do this on a concrete floor where I could use a floor creeper/roller to easily move around.
I actually didn’t find as many surprises in the belly pan as I had expected. As you can see from the picture above the pan is down and simply resting on the axels. There is some type of nest constructed out of some very comfortable insulation towards the front of the pan and I imagine some huge rat use to call that home.
The cleanup filled up 20 gallons worth of trash, but now is ready to be removed without spreading all of that wonderful fiberglass all over the place. I am planning on cutting the pan in quarters and then storing until I get to the point of needing to create a new pan our of some new type of product. I think I will go back with the same type of aluminum, but will do a little research to see if anyone is using vinyl or anything else that might make a better belly pan material. I also spent some time moving all of my various pieces that I am keeping as templates from the ’67 into my ’77 which makes a good storage place for those various items.
I am planning on cutting the pan into quarters during my next work session and then will either begin on stripping the inner skin or removing the inner skin. I would like to remove the old zolatone, but need to talk with some people to see if it is easier to do that project while they are on the ribs or on the floor.