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I had a 1978 Chevy van with a 350. Some of the spark plugs were easy to get from inside with the engine cover out. The others were somewhat easy to get through the front wheel wells by using long extensions between the floor pan and frame rail.
Then in the 80's GM slightly widened the distance between the frame rails, IIRC that's when they first added the tilt steering option. That made it easier to get at the rear spark plugs - but *harder* to get the front ones because some idjit had small pieces of sheet metal welded in to *almost* fill the horizontal V shaped gaps between floor and frame. No more easy access from the sides, have to play contortionist reaching forward from inside the van. That was on a 1984 with 700-R4 transmission, coupled to the horrible gutless 304 V8.
The only purpose I can see for those panels is to make it more difficult to change the majority of the spark plugs.
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