Floor Panel Availability

[malcolm]

Seems that complete floor panels are no longer available through Renault in the UK.

I have a pair of aftermarket "half floor" repair sections though they aren't terribly well made and don't cover the whole floor area, leaving a 12 inch strip of old floor down the centre of the car.

Renault can supply their own half floor repair sections. Does anyone know if theirs meet in the middle?

 

[Steve Hennessey]

Have you tried to see if Renault will order one from France? or have they been discontinued completely? Failing that, if you asked very nicely, would they give you the width of the half sections? If not then you'll just have to get the two half sections and keep your fingers crossed that they overlap a little in the middle. I know that these half sections were available when I was shopping around for parts, but I opted for the complete section.

 

[malcolm]

I asked at Whitehouse and they searched around for quite a while. The full floor panels don't appear to be on the system at all any more. The half sections would need to be ordered in, but they did offer to fax their diagram. Shall possibly take them up shortly when I have access to a fax. Being repair sections I'd imagine they don't go past the central longitudinal strengthener on the GTLs. Could be wrong.

I'll probably use the panels I have, but I've been looking into swaging machines. With supply of other panels drying up too a swaging machine could ome in handy.

 

[angel]

Why do you have to use a specific "Renault 4 floor panel" and not a piece of sheet steel cut to shape? Possibly to have the correct looking swaging? It should be necessary only on the original panels (0.8-1.0mm thick) but if you use 1.5mm plain sheet steel it would be stiffer than the original,and weight increase would be next to nothing. I have repaired several R4s that way and found it way better considering also that floor panels are not available here.

 

[malcolm]

That's a good point. Mostly it is because I want the original looking swaging. But I can't imagine why as nobody else will see the floor.

A completely flat floor might be prone to drumming, and 1.5mm is a bit heavy for the poor engine, but there's no real reason why I can't use 1mm sheet and put my own swaging in. I could swage the whole panel and then knock the swaging out where I want it to be flat for welding.

Might be an idea. My back up plan had been to use a couple of floor side repair panels and keep the original centre section, but that would mean two great big seam welds all the way along the floor which won't look good or original. Most of all - slightly thicker metal would be good for the floor.

 

[bantamallan]

A company called Beevers Auto Panels advertise front and rear floor pans at £34 each, they are made by Hadrian. The drawing on the website looks OK

 

[malcolm]

Those Hadrian drawings seem odd- they don't seem very similar to the original floor construction.

I've toyed with the idea of making a complete floor, but for this project I've decided to use the ebay repair panels. They aren't so bad for quality (after a bit of hammering and trimming) and they are 1.0mm rather than the original 0.8mm which adds a lot of stiffness.

I did some investigation into how to make a replica floor panel. Best way seems to be to buy a swaging machine - much like an English Wheel but presumably with different attachments. Though it is possible to make neat swages by clamping a flat sheet on to two long 5mm thick strips of metal and hammering another strip onto the sheet to form the swage.

 

[bantamallan]

I have ordered 2 front wing repair strips and will report on quality etc

 

[malcolm]

You'll be good with those. They are to the early pattern so you'll need to knock one swage out for a GTL, but they seem to match up quite well to the inner wings.

 

[angel]

I can understand you Clementine about the "original looking non visible part", I have the same opinion,too. But talking about extra weight is ridiculous...lets do some math: A complete R4 floor is 161,1 cm long by 132,4cm wide. With a thickness of 0,8mm (0,08cm) we have a volume of 1706,4 ccm. Steel density is 9.85 gr/ccm, so complete floor weight would be 16,808 kg. If we use 1,5mm thick sheet steel, the floor volume would be 3199,8 ccm and weight 31,515 kg. I don't think that our engines can't cope with a 14,707 weight increase... (and they are placed low so handling would improve!).
When I had the front floor on my '75 made (1,5mm plain sheet steel) I also looked at the possibility of swaging and the shop who sold me the sheets said it could not be done (they only had metal folding and plasma cutting machines). I would be interested to know how this is being done.
I didn't have any drumming problems because we welded two pieces of 10x10mm angle iron lengthwise on the underside of the floor (where the "tunnel" on later models is).