Floor removal problems

[EastCoastCB]

Removing seats and de-riveting two buses I've only went through two grinder discs.

[nat_ster]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

Removing seats and de-riveting two buses I've only went through two grinder discs.

More info please.

Brand, type, size, ect.

Nat

[Tango]

On the subject of blades...First let me state that I am NOT a fan of most things DeWalt...but...they have a 14" diamond steel cutoff blade that I am really impressed by. I chop a LOT of steel and hate all the grit that regular cutoff blades leave behind so I decided to bite the bullet and spent $200 bucks at my steel supply house on the DeWalt 8500 blade to see how it would work. They are "advertised" to last as long as 100 conventional blades. In fact, they may last longer. Do the math. Mine is over two years old now and still whizzes through anything I throw onto my Milwaukee chopper. Cuts cleaner, no wobble, no deflection...and nothing but steel particles to sweep up. And...it is still 14".

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by nat_ster

More info please.

Brand, type, size, ect.

Nat

Cheap standard stuff. Used properly.
One was the hitachi disc that came with the angle grinder.

[family wagon]

That looks like L track. It's engineered to hold wheelchairs down in a collision -- that means it's supposed to hold tight to the floor even when confronted with "a heck of a lot" of force. If you could easily pry it out, that would mean they'd built it seriously wrong.

It seems a little strange that you wouldn't be able to get to any of the nuts on the bottom... somehow somebody reached there to install 'em. Maybe they're covered in foam, undercoating, or other later-added accessories make them hard to reach now. One trick I've used with the impact wrench to avoid the need to hold a backup wrench on the other side is to pry the pieces apart while pulsing the impact wrench. The prying gives just a little pressure between the nut on the back side and whatever it's up against, and each time the impact wrench is pulsed it strikes against a nut that is stationary, so might get just a few degrees of loosening with each pulse. With the bolts so close together you might have to work several of them just a little bit each because the track won't bend much when it's securely bolted just 4" away. It really seems like it would be worthwhile to find a way to get to even some of the nuts from the bottom; each one that you can get will come out easier that way than any other way. Maybe you can modify cheap harbor freight or pawn shop wrenches to build a custom tool for the job.

Hacking that track apart at every 4 inches sounds like an awful task. What about drilling the heads off the bolts? Maybe rent a plasma cutter, air compressor, and air dryer and burn the heads off? (worked great for rivets in my bus! ) Or take it to a welding shop that has such equipment.

[steveoutdoorrec]

Sorry I should have gotten back to you all faster on this.

I'm putting the process up on youtube and here's the episodes about the floor remova

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHTwuBTPfms

And

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYc5psHmGJo

[Wayfaring Way]

We tried prying, banging these with a sledge hammer, getting to the nuts underneath, using an Allen wrench and drill attachment, drilling through with cobalt drill bits, using a diamond blade on an angle grinder, and yelling at these things. The angle grinder was minimally useful, but the others didn't work. On a whim, we just got my circular saw out with a Diablo demolition/wood blade on it. We made a cut across every Allen bolt head and perpendicular to the rail (which is every 4 inches). Each cut last about 3 seconds... and you just go through the metal. After that, you bang out the 4" sections with a hammer. We ground off the heads with our angle grinder and punched them through the floor. Basically, it took us about an hour for a 16' section of rail... start to finish. Hope this helps! Good luck, everyone.

[mikej42]

I can't begin to tell you the hell of a time I had getting my L track out.

Two person job, one guy in the bus holding a wrench and me crawling around underneath undoing the nuts.

Took us three days and easily pulled out over a hundred bolts.

I wanted to salvage the L track to sell and I made about $300 off of it.

Was it worth the trouble? I'm not sure.

[Robin97396]

This is the same reason I've never insulated the floor in my bus. I've got nearly 200 feet of L-track to remove, by myself. The thing is I got this bus because it had the L-track all through it. It is great for fastening things down, with motorcycles being the object.

It's pretty clear that I can't insulate the floor and reinstall the L-track because of the depth issue. If you've ever stepped on the L-track with bare feet during freezing weather, let's say that's another reason the L-track should go.

My alternative is to insulate right over the top of the old floor, just leaving the L-track exposed in the garage portion by the lift. It will only cost me 1 1/4" in height.