This is a shot of the underside in '88 freshly blasted clean. You can just make out our battery floor patch panel my father and I put in.
Wasn't a horrible job but the seam welds all way around meant that it could not stay.
In '99 while in process of longitudinals; I also replaced our old patch panel with a standard 356 vendor battery floor. My initial intention was to do a full replacement instead of a center patch to make a cleaner job of it. Upon closer inspection of my new floor I realized that the two strengthening ribs that were rolled in on both sides were not even close in quality and detail as compared to the originals that were still in place.
Here are the ribs I'm talking about. I thank God we did not cut past these in '88. I then made the decision to make a center patch panel out of my new floor. I put it in just like the longitudinals with raw flanged edges and spot welded detail. I thought I was finished with this. BUT You know how you're always learning something new about these cars. I later realized that the 1956 and early 1957 356AT1 battery box floors were flat in the center with no middle rib pressed in; which also means no tow took either. Instead there are two drain holes front and rear with round covers or shields spot-welded over them. If you look at any 356 parts vendor offering 356A battery box floors you will notice that they only offer the later 356AT2 version with the center rib pressed in.
Here is my old replacement T2 versioned floor I just recently cut back out. A while back I tried shrinking this rib out flat again but the metal was now stretched and was left very wrinkly and wavey. This is such a simple patch beacuse it is flat that I decided to do it one more time. Third times a charm right!
I have this Perfect original lower flange section for the front wall. Original spot welds and details are intact making for a seamless repair here. Another great donor part from my "coupster" which will have an oil tank in front so this piece was gone anyway.
The inside of this new piece has a boundry or profile stain of the original floor so I'm making the front of my template based on it.
Got the correct shape and profile of the original floor.
Profiled edge is slightly different from my old repro floor.
Here is a photo from my 1956 workshop manual. You can see that the floor is flat and has two drain holes with caps front and rear. You can just make out the front one under the "6" in the picture.
Here is waht this caps looks like up close. Another valuable part from the coupster. This was the forward positioned cap originally. It fits right up under and next to the front wall flange so part of it was cut off and fitted this way by the factory.The rear cap was of course long gone! Not a vendor offered item so I'm making one. My steel blank is pictured next to my original above. Will post its fabrication shortly.
Thanks for reading this!!
Justin
