Steel floor thickness question.
 

Going to be fitting a steel floor but want to keep the weight down. What are peoples opinions on the minimum thicknesses you can get away with. I will also be fitting a steel rear panel and tunnel pieces and was thinking of using 0.5mm steel. Would that be maybe too thin?

I'd go with 2mm - 14gauge for the floor and either 1-0.8mm 20-22gauge for the panels. You want a little strength to the body work otherwise it will be covered in dents before you've even finished it.

make it from aluminium

Originally I would have made my car's floor from 3mm ally, but decided on 1.6mm steel plate space welded to the chassis and sealed with SikaFlex all round the seams.
This gave me a very strong chassis (and floor) without the big number of holes drilled into the chassis bottom for the pop rivets that may cause rust problems later. Btw, pop rivets have no structural benefits.
The difference of weight from 3mm ally to 1.6mm steel was only 3.7kg...

However, for the rear bulkhead and tunnel 1.2mm aluminum was used.

I used 2mm steel floor which I'm really happy with. The choice boiled down to the fact I had the steel costing me nothing. :)

J

i'm using 2mm as it is what was left over from making a bombing target in work, well it was free:D

Dean

I used 1.2mm (18g) on mine, been on the road 7 years now with no ill effects, no corrosion etc.

This is what i wanted to hear. Thank you!

And Thanks for the other replies too, most welcome.

Cheers

Chris

Lotus and Caterham use Ali as the floor 16 ga I believe? For 50 YEARS! Why do some have this insatiable need to 'improve' on what clearly doesn't require it?

what's 16 gauge in mm please ?

1.6mm, its an easy one to remember :o)

Martyn

British standard wire gauge + or - 0.1mm

1mm - 20gauge
1.2mm - 18gauge
1.6mm - 16gauge
2mm - 14gauge
2.5mm - 12gauge
3mm- 10gauge

Because all are not created equal :D
In my case I used 1.6mm steel plate welded (spaced) to the frame for the simple reason with my weight of 135kg I would step right through that flimsy ally floor and pull all the rivets out whilst at it....:o

my car is 1.6mm ali floor 5025 grade so its nice and tough. its bonded on along with 3.2mm sealed rivets 2.5inch apart. the car has been on the road for 2 years now and taken lots of track abuse, there isnt a single lose rivet. if you run over something bad enough to pierce through the floor it wont matter if its ali or steel, its still coming to get ya. the seat is the most important thing. my tritons are 2-3inch thick on the bottom.

Truth is the rivets job is secondary if using bonding agent because that stuff alone is strong enough for the job. I have tried to seperate two pieces of ali that were bonded with some gook and the ali tore before the sealer let go. I had to heat them up to get them to part company. So rivets and bonding has got to be the way to go me thinks.

Bob