Craig - I guess a frozen spirit level could work.
Scottie - Cheers.
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An unexpected journey...
My plan for today was to simply weld up the first "join" bracket to the rear frame.
But, as usual, the day didn't actually go quite to plan...
Following the debate about finding a straight edge to work with I thought I'd quickly put the floor in to see if that would help.
First problem of the day...
Obviously the floor will not fit into place as I've bolted the frame to the chassis.
Now the bolts are too long and it takes ages to unbolt them, but eventually the frame was removed.
Why did I remove it, when I was originally planning just to put the floor in?
Well by now, I had remembered that my original plan was to weld the floor in place.
In order to do this, I needed to trim the edges of the floor in a few places so I could join it to the frame below.
So I clamped the floor to the frame, using the pop rivets to ensure it was all lined up properly.
Then I could make up the floor edges ready for trimming.
Much better.
Then I cleaned up the edges of the floor ready for welding.
I also cleaned up the corresponding sections of the framework.
Then I used the six pop rivets to hold the floor in place & then added some clamps.
I had to move the frame around so I could get at the various edges.
This is the view from underneath and it is easy to see where the bend in the chassis gets in the way.
I can't move the floor to the right (in the photo above) because the seat would foul the edge of the cockpit.
Note: As it turns out, I might have to trim the edges of the cockpit anyway.
One passenger floor welded in.
At this point I haven't joined all the welding up, but I will come back to that another day.
Then the frame went back on the chassis and was bolted back on again.
I could reach the bolts while working in the space where the driver's floor will go.
So when that is fitted, getting to the bolts will be a major pain.
Also I don't think I will be able to lift the frame off by myself when the driver's floor goes in as it is pretty heavy now.
I dug out one of my seats to see how that was looking.
To be honest, the angle of the seat back combined with the angle of the lowered floors is still a problem.
I have seen another pair of seats on ebay that might work and the (trade) seller is local.
So I might just have to bite the bullet and buy new seats.
End of part 1....