So....

How can you tell if you should replace the floor pans in your bug pan?

all I can see at the moment is some surface rust and one small l shaped split around where the battery was sitting.

I dont know how thick the metal should be really?

take a look here.

http://gibbon.servebeer.com/bug 

any advice as well as possible pricing would help.

cheers

paint can hide a lot of things. give any areas that look suspect a good hard jab with a screwdriver. As long as you cant see the floor it's fine

If its only a small hole you only need to clean it up and weld a plate in place, nothing serious and easy to do.

wire brush it all down clean it out then stick a lead light underneath as well it will show any holes through the floor, and as che castro said poke about with a screwdriver

you will obviously be getting that pan bead blasted, I'd expect there to be a lot of small holes and perhaps some big ones when you are done i've never seen an oval pan come back any other way. On a tangent I recently did some pan 1/4 the rear end bit and I can honestly say just do the halfs its easier and will look neater.

Yep, the first thing on the list is a strip and sand blast, cool, thanks for the tips.

Having replaced the floor pans on Brad's pan (which you would have seen sitting next to my pan (which is on the 17in Cup3s) at Brad's place when picking up the oval) - it is not that hard, just time consuming. Firstly and obviously is dissasembly of pedal assembly etc (which is already done).

Next we did a combination of partially drilling out spot welds with a moderately large diameter drill bit (so it didn't go right through the lip on pan tunnel) - also used a cut off wheel (air powered) to grind down pan on each spot weld. Then use an air chisel carefully to pry the pan half off the tunnel lip right around - some seam welds need to be ground down (eg at front where the two elongated holes are situated for pan to body bolts). Next size up your new pan halves, trial fit, trim a little , trial fit again etc.

Then either drill (or punch if you're lucky enough to have a punch/flange tool) every inch around the edge of the new halves. Then rosette weld the spot welds (and seam weld where necessary). Seam weld right around to make super strong - but hope you never decide to replace the pan halves again since it would be a mammoth task to grind all the welds off! (which you shouldn't have to if you properly paint/prep the new pans and store/maintain it well)

Alan