YouTuber Shows Mistakes of His Mustang Floorpan Cutting
From melting rust with his plasma cutter, to forgetting ear protection, bumps in YouTuber’s Mustang build part of the journey.
Building a Mustang project takes plenty of planning before the first bolt is removed. You, of course, have to know what you want for the project (Drag-strip dominator? Track-day terrorizer? The ultimate cruiser?). Then, it’s a matter of figuring out what parts and tools will be needed (and maybe a few cases of beer for your friends, too). All that remains is how much time you can give, and how much skill you’ve got to make it happen.
If you’re a bit green to some more advanced car-building skills, though, your Mustang project might roll upon a bumpy road. Such is the case for YouTuber Do It With Dan, who is in the middle of his Fox-body Mustang build. This time around, he’s getting ready to cut the floorpan, but it’s easier said than done.
Mixed-up Mustang
“I told you guys in the previous video I’m gonna be making essentially a mixture of a roll cage and a tube chassis,” Dan said. “I’m also gonna be using square stock to make my own frame rails and stuff like that […] My goal is to cut out the floorpan, first of all […] just start cleaning up the metal on the insides of where your pinch welds would normally meet, probably add some new steel there, tack it all together, and then start building the tube chassis.”
Before going to work on cutting the frame, the YouTuber repositions the Mustang to more secure footing on the lift. He also sets up his tools for building the tube frame, including a plasma cutter with some busted cutting tips, then removes the brake and fuel lines, lest he and his ride go up in smoke on the first cut.
‘Plasmatic’ Solution
“For the sake of ease, I’m gonna use the old plasma cutter,” Dan said. “I haven’t used the plasma cutter in forever […] I’m gonna take the plasma cutter, and just cut out this whole floorpan all the way up to where the frame rails would start to curve upwards for the rest of the supports.”
Though the plan sounds feasible, but aside from the worn tips, he’s also lacking in respirators to protect him from whatever fumes are made during the cutting; he makes up for that with an open garage, and a fan to blow the fumes away. There’s also the fact parts of the floorpan are straight-up rust. As he would later learn, all the plasma cutter would do is melt the rust into globs of iron, which would then damage his floor. In the end, the trusty Sawzall would finish the cutting job.
“The one thing I thought about doing is running the lower chassis tubes through here, kind of hide it in here,” said Dan regarding the newly opened rocker panels. “I think that’d be cool, keep it as low-key as possible.”
Back on the plasma cutter — no rust to fuse together this time — the YouTuber cuts away a couple of holes to insert the tube, then cuts the tube itself and two new panels to tie it all together with a metal saw. Of course, he forgets to plug his ears against the sound of all that grinding metal, a theme that continues when he Sawzall’s the remainder of the floorpan to finish this phase of the project.
“I feel like we’ve made some decent progress,” said Dan. “On paper, all I did was cut the floors out, then weld in a tube, right? But there’s a lot more work that goes into that, and I hope you guys see that.”
We can’t wait to see where this project Mustang goes. Hopefully, he’ll remember to buy some heavy ear protection for the next rounds of cutting.
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