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Not a 100%, but I think it has to do with the Junior models that had rumble seats. So that would be Convertible Coupes and Sport Coupes.

I think those are the ones that still had a lot of wood from the B-Pillars to the rear.

I know the Senior model bodies still used used lots of wood in '37.

By 38, I think all the Junior bodies were all steel, but the rumbleseats were eliminated.

This is the "tack strip" I am referring to:

Yesterday while the site was down, I figured I would get that tack strip out and replaced.

The tack strip sits in a V-shaped floor channel formed where the front metal floor and the rumble seat compartment floor flanges are spot-welded together. The slotted wood screws were so rusted that the slots were gone. But the wood was so degraded that it pretty much just came apart in my hands, and then I was able to grab the screws with vise grips to remove them.




It's pretty rusty in there, so I cleaned the channel with a wire brush and then painted it with some rust converter paint. From this angle, it looked pretty good.




Then I went around to the backside to make sure I got the paint everywhere, and after the wire wheel had done its magic, rust holes appeared that were not visible from the front view.




So, I will have to cut that channel out and weld in a patch panel. If I can find a piece of 18/19 ga pre-bent "angle iron" sheet metal, that would work perfectly. Most likely, I will spot-weld it in and seam-seal it. It will have to go in from underneath, as that is really the only way to do it without breaking that flange between the front and rear floor pans.

That tack strip, which I am positive must have been to secure the carpet/floor mat in the rumble seat area, is the low point. So any water that gets in there ends up in that channel underneath that wood, rotting both the wood and the floor pan over time.

While I'm all for originality, perhaps this might be a time for minor invisible improvement? What if you replaced the trough with a raised bead roll (strength but not a low point that would collect water) and just glued the carpet to that or utilized a lower profile tack strip?