Wow! Repop Stepdown Front floor pans - Nice!

rambos_ride
rambos_ride Senior Contributor
edited November -1 in HUDSON
Today I got my reproduction front floor pans from



Ken Amman

kamman@power-net.net



My first inclination after doing the trunk pan was to build my own replacement panels for the rotted out front floor pans in my 49 Commodore - but I was swayed after looking at pictures of these repops on Dennis in NY website for his convertible. They are much better quality than I was expecting - I'm extremely happy and it was a good investment of money to save me MANY HOURS of fab time,

floor1.jpg

floor2.jpg

floor3.jpg



And all I can say is WOW!



If you need front floor pans send Ken an email and drop him some dough $$ you won't be sorry, fast shipping, great packaging and excellant quality!



Now if we could only get him to repop the rest of the car! :eek:



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Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown
    It's because of the efforts of people like Ken Amman, and Bill Albright, and all of the others, making parts, and remember, a lot of the investment to do so comes out of their pockets, and this is not cheap! Stuff like this that makes owning a hudson all the more worthwile.



    BTW, Ken's a good guy as well!
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Curious, will these step down floorpans also fit 52 and 53 Hornet Coupes? Niels
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    They are the same Sedan or Coupe
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Is that cool, or what!!!
  • PAULARGETYPE
    PAULARGETYPE Senior Contributor
    Hi Well I To Used These Pans And Wow Is The Right Word I Had To Do Some Fitting Because My Car Is A Pacemaker But The Do Fit The Bolt Hgoles Don't Line Up On A Pacemaker These Saved Me Alot Of Work
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Ken is great. If you have not used him for parts in the past, give him a try. EVERY time I call him, he gets right back to me and if he has the part (and he usually does), I have it within two days. Great guy, great parts.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    If anyone is contemplating getting these pans you'd better move fast. These pans were made a number of years ago for Jack Miller when he used to sell Hudson parts. There are NO MORE when these are sold out. Ken bought out Jack a few years ago and these came with the package. Ithink there wer about 8 pairs left at the time. Now ,however, it's a different story. If you want them MOVE FAST. Once these are gone- that's it.
  • rambos_ride
    rambos_ride Senior Contributor
    Hudzilla wrote:
    If anyone is contemplating getting these pans you'd better move fast. These pans were made a number of years ago for Jack Miller when he used to sell Hudson parts. There are NO MORE when these are sold out. Ken bought out Jack a few years ago and these came with the package. Ithink there wer about 8 pairs left at the time. Now ,however, it's a different story. If you want them MOVE FAST. Once these are gone- that's it.



    Ken never mentioned in any of our email correspondance that these were in limited supply - If this is true - BUMMER - because stepdowns eat these things for breakfast and he is one of the only known sources for these babies.



    With my 49 if you look at the pictures of the old floor pans you can actually see the 'water line' in rust where the water had obviously pooled over the years and rotted out the pans.



    Luckily my rear floor pans are quite solid as the rust monster seemed to skip them and go straight for the trunk pan :)
  • hudsonguy
    hudsonguy Senior Contributor
    Does anyone know what type of tooling was used to make these repro floor pans? More specifically, does anyone know if this tooling still exists? In the event these tools could be located, there's a possibility that they could still be capable of producing parts. If not, there are numerous lower cost stamping die technologies available today that weren't around 20 years ago. I've had prototype tractor foot decks produced using wooden forms, for relatively reasonable prices. These foot decks were much thicker steel than used for automotive floor pans also. The key here is to capture the details and dimensions of the floor pans on the computer, which can then be used to reproduce the parts.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Was there something in the WTN about Ken selling his business? Maybe I'm thinking of someone else. Someone is advertising a business for sale in the WTN classifieds.
  • Jon B
    Jon B Administrator
    The floor pans will be in stock for the foreseeable future. I just e-mailed Ken Amman. In fact, they have just placed another order with their supplier. The tooling, as far as I know, is new. No one has found any original tooling in the "Hudson vaults".



    Ken's floorboards, along with many other Hudson reproduction items, are listed on my Hudson Repro website, http://mysite.verizon.net/detailed1/Repro%20Table.htm
  • rambos_ride
    rambos_ride Senior Contributor
    Jon B wrote:
    The floor pans will be in stock for the foreseeable future. I just e-mailed Ken Amman. In fact, they have just placed another order with their supplier. The tooling, as far as I know, is new. No one has found any original tooling in the "Hudson vaults".



    Ken's floorboards, along with many other Hudson reproduction items, are listed on my Hudson Repro website, http://mysite.verizon.net/detailed1/Repro%20Table.htm



    Thanks Jon B - Stepdown owners can now rejoice and buy new pans!
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Hudsonguy, As I remember Jack telling the story, the stamping dies were made with a material which could be reconfigured into a new die. Jack related that he really didn't "own" the dies ,they were more or less rented. The stamping company had made a given number of pieces and after a period of time came back to Jack to inquire if he wanted to reorder more front floor pans. Jack indicated he hadn't sold out of his first batch yet so they said that the time limit was up on the use of the stamping dies and that they were going to be changed into something else. Jack was a bit annoyed but couldn't do much as the dies were forefited back. Origionaly he was also going to produce rear pans as well but became discouraged when sales of the front pans didn't go as briskly as he had hoped. If memory serves, they were stamped in a place called Romeo, Michigan.
  • rambos_ride
    rambos_ride Senior Contributor
    That's too bad Jack didn't have more luck selling these - but good Ken is still on top of it for us.



    Of course with sales there is always something to be said about timing and exposure - with the technology available today for cold draw stamping and taking advantage of the internet to display products I would think you could sell a lot more Hudson repop parts like these...



    Right now this is all I now of for Hudson sheet metal for stepdowns



    * Front Floor Pan Replacments

    * Rocker Panels



    At a minimum we should have those plus...



    *Rear Floor Pans

    *Trunk Pan Replacements

    *All Lower Outer Body Panels (at least 12" up) (even a generic 4-5ft by 12" section would be nice)

    *The Rear Roll pan (between decklid and bumper)

    *Rear Outer Frame Rails



    All fairly simple layouts for a stamping, IMHO, and if these were available maybe even more people would take the plunge into Restoring a Hudson stepdown rather than scrapping it.



    For example If I had tried to make the front floor pans - they would not look as original or as nice and it would have easily taken me 40 hours to hand fit and fabricate. At shop time of even a modest 50.00 an hour - that's 2000.00 clams right there for custom fabrication and why most people go to BrandX - you can buy the repop parts for 90% less than the cost of custom fab work!



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  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Sorry its been awhile for me on here lasta hard drive a few weeks agao and been working on my 49 2 door. I am to th epoint of stripping it down and getting into the nighty gritty. I need front and rear floor pans. Passenger back is bad drivers isnt, both fronts are bad so is the center piece that comes out in the front. I read if iam wrong let me know that you cant get the rear ones the trunk is fine its just the floors just like on ever other car that needs redone
  • rambos_ride
    rambos_ride Senior Contributor
    stffy64 wrote:
    Sorry its been awhile for me on here lasta hard drive a few weeks agao and been working on my 49 2 door. I am to th epoint of stripping it down and getting into the nighty gritty. I need front and rear floor pans. Passenger back is bad drivers isnt, both fronts are bad so is the center piece that comes out in the front. I read if iam wrong let me know that you cant get the rear ones the trunk is fine its just the floors just like on ever other car that needs redone

    Send Ken an email (the link is at the top of the thread) - I know he had the fronts but I don't know for sure about the back. Ken may know have some or know of someone who does...

    The front floor pans are the bomb - fit really nicely. The rear pans you may be able to have someone make since they are a lot simpler design than the fronts.

    Good luck - glad to hear your trunk wasn't all rotted out like mine!
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