Patching floors and POR15

[axisg]

OK, took a couple of pics this morning. Still a little pissed that I lost all of the work that I saved until this point as it was a real PIA to take off my gloves so not to get paint and crap on my phone !!

I love white Tremclad. It's thick and hides a lot of the imperfections. So in total I have 2 coats of POR15 on the floor and 4 or more coats where I put patches in then a nice thick coat of Tremclad over that ( mostly because I think I have OCD and I didn't like the look of the grey and black patches of POR on the floor).

This was the big patch on the PS side floor front

Dark shot of the PS Floor Rear

DS Floor front after 2 coats of POR15 and 1 heavy coat of Tramclad. If you look closely you can see where I patched the floor on the top of the rocker. It was about the size of a quarter but I meshed it for appx 18" and put 4 coats of POR on it before painting overtop.

DS Floor Rear

All in all it was more work and took longer than I thought and I bet I still have another 4-6 hours to put it all back together.

This is what my trunk looks like working on your car, in the driveway. Notice the foil bubble wrap I am going to use to try and keep the heat down.

Can't help posting a few pics of the new and improved engine bay as well.
Before:

After the computer delete and a 350 swap

A shot of it going in, and a shot of my buddies '83 Elco in the background with the 6 speed swap and some other go fast goodies.

I want the tremclad to harden up for a few days, maybe a week before I get the interior in ( but that pushes things into Fathers Day weekend and my wife and kids will be pissed if I spend it in the driveway wrenching on the car again ! ).

Really itching to git this buttoned up and take my car for a drive because I have only put about 100 kms on it since the motor swap and that was with only the drivers seat and passenger seats in the car ( no backseat or carpet and a trunk full of tools ) so it was noisey and crap sliding all over the pace every time I got into the loud pedal.

I need to get the interior in, the AC working, an exhaust leak sorted out, and my roller rockers re-adjusted before I can cruise and finish breaking in my motor. Then I have a posi-rear with 3.73's to bolt in and then I start thinking of upgrading the trans again..... things to do, things to do.

 

[axisg]

You know what, after re-reading my post I can't tell 100% if that's the pic of my motor when I first bought the car or not as I started cleaning up the engine bay the first week I had the car. If I lifted that pic from someone else my apologies.

 

[axisg]

didn't touch the car all weekend but I got in almost 3 hours tonight. Will upload and post some pics in the AM as my back and knees are sore from putting down all of the foil-bubble and getting the carpet back in. Dummy that I am I had the tunes going and the doors, hood, and trunk open. The radio cut out it turns out I killed the battery !!! Hopefully the trickle charger will give it enough juice in an hour or so that I can get the windows back up.

 

[axisg]

OK got some pics up.

my helper for the eve ( I had to bribe him with extra Wii time but I hope in the future he can remember helping his dad )

I used Bubble Foil ( used for insulating hot water heaters ) as I only wanted to keep the heat from the headers off the the floor and was not concerned with noise. Besides even the cheap stuff from home depot was 3x the price.

2 hours on my hands and knees rolling, forming, cutting everything to fit. I can only imagine how much of a PIA the adhesive backed stuff is to use.

Another hour to get the carpet and back seats back in the car again and it's looking pretty good ( it was right around this time the sun started going down and the battery went dead !

All that's left are the kick panels, door sills, and centre console

What I discovered during this little adventure was that they really butchered the car when putting in the stereo. I guess I will be looking for some patch panels some time in the future as the speaker box is all that's holding up the rear parcel shelf.

 

[blizack]

How long did it take to get the Por15 shipped to you when after you ordered?

 

[axisg]

2 days I think ( but I ordered it from London area )

 

[Coveted]

2 things. you should have cut out the rust and welded in new metal, glass is a shitty way to rust repair.

second, por15 on both sides of the panel and then paint over it, por 15 is extremely sensative to UV, to protect it you paint over it or undercoat it. which is a feat in itself as its so slippery nothing sticks.
thumbs up on the progress, nice to see more people restoring the gbodys.

 

[85montess]

I am really really optimistic now that I see the progress of someone else in my shoes. This gives good motivation for me as I have a decent rust road ahead of me. How does this stuff work in terms of the welded pieces that the actual seats bolt into? I am talking about the metal with the bolt sticking out of it. My 85 monte needs some tlc.

 

[axisg]

2 things. you should have cut out the rust and welded in new metal, glass is a shitty way to rust repair.

second, por15 on both sides of the panel and then paint over it, por 15 is extremely sensative to UV, to protect it you paint over it or undercoat it. which is a feat in itself as its so slippery nothing sticks.
thumbs up on the progress, nice to see more people restoring the gbodys.

I decided to use the POR and their fibre mesh due to the minimal amount of time I thought it would take. I didn't want to deal with welding because the rust was located just below the seam between the floorboard and the firewall and there was enough metal left that that section of floor that it was still rigid. If I had the time and a car-lift to get the car off the ground then the dash would come out and so would the heaterbox so I could cut out the rust and weld in a patch panel. If this stuff works like it is advertised then the rust will not progress further but I know that it is not any better either.


I would like to point out that I would not use this stuff if there is structure involved though. If you need to repair anything that will be stressed ( like your seat brace mentioned above ) then you need to weld in new metal.