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78 K5 Rocker Rebuild

I cut half of the front floor support off. You can tell part of the metal is very thin. I'm debating if I should remove the entire support. I hesitant to go into the joint. Is it possible to remove the support from the bottom side without removing the floor? Is there not enough metal to weld to?

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Here is how the rear is aligning. I'm going to need to make a relief cut in the rocker as the fit is not exactly. I think the rocker contour on a 78 do not match to later years.

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Here is another build with the floor support shown. I do not want to make a new floor support brace. I'm thinking about leaving the floor support brace in and sliding out the floor support from the underside.

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I made the decision to remove the entire front floor support and the joint to the cab support. I would advice not doing this if your joint is solid and there is something else good to weld on the floor support. There are many spot welds in this joint. Underneath the cage nut support there are 4 spot welds that hold the floor support to were it sits on the cab support. What I call cab support runs front to back on the K5 Blazer. On the ears of the floor support there a two spot welds each. There are three spot welds from the top that go into the brace which the floor sits on. Finally there is the cage nut support which has welds on the side and two welds on the tang that touches the wall of the cab support.

There are two types of floor patch panels from Tabco. One with and without the cage nut support. I don't see how it is possible to slide the front floor support under the cage nut support. There is no access to remove the spot welds on the floor support. This panel is good if you want to use your old cage support or patch a partial section of the floor support.

The panel on the right with the cage nut support does not allow for the four spot welds where the floor support sits on the cab support. There is no access if you are working body on frame to spot weld or plug weld.

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Here are some build photos.

This is what it looked like before I removed the whole floor support.

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Here is the mess that I had once I tore into the entire floor support. There is no access to the four spot welds with out removing the cage support.

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So I created an access point in the floor to use a spot weld drill bit.

The joint were the cab support and floor support meet. Here it is removed. The front left spot weld on the can support I went about 1/3 deap into the support with the spot weld drill. My concern is that this may be a fatigue point. So I'm going to hit it with the mig to build up some metal.

It still needs to get cleaned up before weld thru primer. I'm using a 3M rust/ paint remover disk on a 3in air tool.

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Front floor support mocked up with the inner rocker. The kick panel not shown goes on the outside. It took a lot of hammering to fit the Tapco floor support. I believe that is by design. I had to hammer down the top ridges.

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I'm been fortunate to have alot of great advice and encouragement on messenger with several forum members. Thank you!
 
I missed this resurrected thread somehow.
Brings back memories, good and bad.
 
I'm not liking the way the Tapco floor support with built in cage support sits. Its not completely flat on the cab support.

I'm thinking about using the tapco part without the cage support. This will allow me to spot weld it to the cab floor and to get it to sit better then the tapco part with the cage nut. Also I recently came across this at a junk yard below. The floor is dirty and there are only a few surface rust spots. The inner rocker looked solid. It may have some inside rust. I'm thinking about going back an sawzall it out. I also would get then an OEM cage support which my OEM cage support is mangled.

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I didn't like the fit of the after market floor supports. I tried both Tapco (made in USA) and Classic Industries (made oversees). I was at the junk yard and found a rust free cab that I sawzall out at patch piece. Even the inner rocker was solid. I'm going to try and make this piece work.

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I'm back at this project. Its been a long time. I've decided I'm going to use the part from the junk yard for the floor support and lower A pillar joint.

The part is almost rust free.

I'm debating if I should remove the cage nut piece from the floor support or just leave it as is. I would like to duplicate the factory spot welds but the cage nut is in the way.

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You could always just cut a 3 sided square access hole in the floor to tack the inside of the floor support from above then just close it back up.
 
Got the inner rocker and lower B pillar welded in. The A pillar floor support is grafted from a truck and the B pillar is from a rust free K5 sawzall from the junk yard. Some copper weld tru primer and Por15 in the B pillar.

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I'm going through that on mine as well. Looking forward to going through your links when I get time as i need all the help i can get. Getting motivated to weld when it's 95 degrees in the shop has slowed me down this summer
 
I'm concerned that the por15 may act like a threadlock so I'm going to use a die and chase the thread. May also take a Dremel brush to the thread.
 
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