Any tips on a temporary fix floor pan rust hole
- Thread starter Chased
- Start date
Ok I'll look. I was watching an 86 sedan coming up on auction but it's gone. Not know why, never came up for bids, but no longer in inventory.
I also have an 86.
I also have an 86.
A lot will depend on welding skills, not necessarily body work skills. Are you planning to butt weld it so you can't tell a repair was made or lap weld? I usually wind up making things worse trying to butt weld. Especially thin sheet metal where I cant get a backing spoon or something to help prevent burning holes though. If you're going to lap weld and then seam seal I'll suggest an alternative using body panel adhesives. You can fit the panel with about a 1 inch overlap and secure it with screws or rivets until the adhesive cures, then remove the fasteners and plug weld the leftover holes if desired. This would be the same amount of work as your original idea, eliminate the seam sealer while providing corrosion protection for the repair area and be as strong if not stronger than butt welding. Just my 2 cents
vice grip garage always likes to use self tap screws & license plates as a permanent solution but should serve as a good temporary solution too.
Much of what others have contributed is worthy of consideration but before doing any patchwork and repairs, you should also be looking into the cause or source of water that lead to the rust. That would definitely be the very FIRST thing I would do!
Uncle Tony Garage and Kiwi would call that flipper butchery and give them a well derserved ripping.
It's the first thing I did and I pulled the rear glass as it wasn't sealed at all
But I used silicone caulking!
Jokes aside I used to only be a fan of welding and doing body work the very complicated yet "proper" way. Adhesives always seemed like a joke, a hack job for morons too lazy to learn how to weld and use body hammers. Well, the times have changed and so have I and I now agree with 57 Handyman about using something such as 3M Panel Bond Adhesive. If it's done correctly the repair will be stronger than if a patch was butt welded in place, although the additional strength is negligible here. The panel adhesive is also more durable then seam sealer by a long shot if you ask me, and I haven't seen it shrink up and crumble like the sealer.
With that said there's nothing wrong with doing a temporary fix but mine tend to end up being fairly permanent, so if I were to "glue" something on I'd use the PBA. Street signs and silicone make excellent quick repairs but definitely will not last (experience), and unless doing a "Rat Rod" they'll look horrible. Ya know, because it's butchery. An appropriately sized and shaped patch held in with PBA will blend right in and last nearly forever. I'm looking at a similar yet larger repair myself.
I was going to do the TEMP repair but I found another spot that needs attention. I cant bring myself to do it any other way but the right way at this point. One because the interior is ripped out and two I'll know it's there and will drive me nuts
One thing to remember about PBA is that its meant for attaching whole replacement panels designed for it, not patches. PBA has different expansion and contraction rates than metal which will make a PBA attached patch ghost up in temp changes. Moreover, body panels in modern cars are designed and stamped with attachment points meant for PBA, old car body panels not so much. Modern car body panels have 1 inch wide seams for PBA, most old car panels only have 1/4 inch seams for welding. Also PBA requires compression while it cures, if not clamped tightly the joint will be weak.
Just to be clear I am not saying PBA is bad,, but that every method is meant for different applications. That one method may be excellant for one application and poor for another. Old cars often require outdated methods because they are designed for them and modern methods are not always backwards compatible.
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