ROTTED FLOORS
- Thread starter bettiesue
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this isnt a quick fix. im not sure what your planning to do with your car, but this is something you dont wana half *ss. my car had 3 major rust spots on the floor boards. if you havent already, you will have to take basically your entire interior out with the exception of the dash. heres my bad spots:
instead of ordering new floorpans, you might want to check a couple junkyards for good gbody floors. i got both sides in decent shape for $300. i used only about half of that flooring for the rear spots. tac welded, improvised in some corners, and the seam sealed it. you might want to get someone who knows how to weld if you dont, this shouldnt be your first shot.
for the front we had to improvise a lot because of the bends. i got a decent piece from my donor floor, and then improvised A LOT. i cut off part of a hood from a 50's ford tow truck to use as sheet metal
it took some patience, but finally we made it work, and fits like a glove.
we por-15 the whole car, and im proud to say that i have a rust free cutlass.
its not an easy task, it was one of the hardest for me, and its somehting you pretty much have to do right.
instead of ordering new floorpans, you might want to check a couple junkyards for good gbody floors. i got both sides in decent shape for $300. i used only about half of that flooring for the rear spots. tac welded, improvised in some corners, and the seam sealed it. you might want to get someone who knows how to weld if you dont, this shouldnt be your first shot.
for the front we had to improvise a lot because of the bends. i got a decent piece from my donor floor, and then improvised A LOT. i cut off part of a hood from a 50's ford tow truck to use as sheet metal
it took some patience, but finally we made it work, and fits like a glove.
we por-15 the whole car, and im proud to say that i have a rust free cutlass.
its not an easy task, it was one of the hardest for me, and its somehting you pretty much have to do right.
Well, step one is to TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK!!! Step two is to decide how far you want to go. I tend to think that a car as bad as yours requires welding. As for tar and pop rivets... Are you a roofer or a car guy? Do the floor right unless it is just a beater you plan to junk soon. In that case, anything from fiberglass to plywood to stolen road signs cut to fit and held in with sheetmetal screws will do the trick. If you like the car though, and wish to keep it, it's time to learn how to weld.
Well, most of us aren't welders either. (I am a pizza delivery driver/Mechanical Engineering student with no formal training in any of this stuff.) If you saw some of my welds... Anyhow, it is not hard to do a sound weld for the floor and then seal it. I did mine about a year ago and sealed it with fiberglass. The MOST important thing you can do is figure out where the car is leaking rain water and seal it up before you do any repairs. Otherwise, it will all come back again.
If your floors are not horrible, use fiberglass resin and mat to fix it. Better than Fiberglass resin is POR 15 and mat. If it is really bad, there are some options available. One is to pay to have it done, but it's a G body, and G body people are poor and cheap (like me!)...lol. So, that brings me to another option: Take a auto body night class at a local school or community college. The price of admission is worth the experience and availability of tools. The option I took was to borrow a welder from a neighbor and booger weld my way to happiness...and a solid floor. My Cutlass is the first car I ever welded anything on, and it turned out somewhat OK. At least it is better and more solid than it would have been if I hacked it.
Oh, I almost forgot a last one for someone who doesn't want to weld: Panel Bond!!! If it is strong enough for car makers to glue structural parts like door hinges on car, it is good enough for a floor repair. It lets you glue metal together so strongly that the metal will tear before it ever comes apart. It should be available at an auto body supply store in your area. Barring that, try Eastwood.com. Eastwood sells a variety of restoration chemicals and needs that you will run into. If I were going to use it, I would cut the rusted floor out and cut the new panel oversize and put it in from the top. After test fitting, put the glue on the outside edge of the bottom panel and screw it down securely with self tapping sheet metal screws (a box of 100 is only about $5 at the hardware store). When it sets up, chop off the threads of the screws from the bottom of the car and grind it smooth. Slop some seam sealer caulk over the area with a cheap 50 cent paint brush and it's done.
Now, to cut the repair section from a donor car, you can use a chisel and a 5lb mini sledge, a cordless drill and a cordless reciprocating saw ( I got my cordless saw for $36 at Harbor Freight, and the drill was a Christmas Present). I also love my 4.5 in angle grinder with a cutoff wheel, but the wheels are short lived and pricey. I probably went through $50 worth of wheels doing my car's various rust repairs.
If your floors are not horrible, use fiberglass resin and mat to fix it. Better than Fiberglass resin is POR 15 and mat. If it is really bad, there are some options available. One is to pay to have it done, but it's a G body, and G body people are poor and cheap (like me!)...lol. So, that brings me to another option: Take a auto body night class at a local school or community college. The price of admission is worth the experience and availability of tools. The option I took was to borrow a welder from a neighbor and booger weld my way to happiness...and a solid floor. My Cutlass is the first car I ever welded anything on, and it turned out somewhat OK. At least it is better and more solid than it would have been if I hacked it.
Oh, I almost forgot a last one for someone who doesn't want to weld: Panel Bond!!! If it is strong enough for car makers to glue structural parts like door hinges on car, it is good enough for a floor repair. It lets you glue metal together so strongly that the metal will tear before it ever comes apart. It should be available at an auto body supply store in your area. Barring that, try Eastwood.com. Eastwood sells a variety of restoration chemicals and needs that you will run into. If I were going to use it, I would cut the rusted floor out and cut the new panel oversize and put it in from the top. After test fitting, put the glue on the outside edge of the bottom panel and screw it down securely with self tapping sheet metal screws (a box of 100 is only about $5 at the hardware store). When it sets up, chop off the threads of the screws from the bottom of the car and grind it smooth. Slop some seam sealer caulk over the area with a cheap 50 cent paint brush and it's done.
Now, to cut the repair section from a donor car, you can use a chisel and a 5lb mini sledge, a cordless drill and a cordless reciprocating saw ( I got my cordless saw for $36 at Harbor Freight, and the drill was a Christmas Present). I also love my 4.5 in angle grinder with a cutoff wheel, but the wheels are short lived and pricey. I probably went through $50 worth of wheels doing my car's various rust repairs.
like '85, I too have used fiberglass to cover small rust holes in floor-it keeps the water out and is strong, although probably not strong enough to prescribe for holes of significant size. if you have large holes or too many 1/4" ones, probably better off with steel replacement. I was comfortable with how it repaired my aerocoupe's floor, and when the car was stolen/stripped, it looked good in the salvage yard photos :wink:
Corvettes are put together with panel bond! It's strong stuff, I use it alot at work. would highly recommend that over sheetmetal screws for the inexperienced welder
fixing floors needs exprience if its a bad floor. this was my newest project that i did last fall
and this is after
fyi that all started as flat sheet metal 18 gauge
and this is after
fyi that all started as flat sheet metal 18 gauge
Just got done doing the floor pans in my Grand National.They werent as rotted as the pics you guy posted but there were a few pinholes front and rear so I replaced the whole panels.
Cutting and patching,while it gets the job done,is no where near ideal and actually takes longer than cutting out the old panels and welding in new ones.
I will post some pics up tomorrow...
Cutting and patching,while it gets the job done,is no where near ideal and actually takes longer than cutting out the old panels and welding in new ones.
I will post some pics up tomorrow...
I haven't got pics on this computor but the floors in my 79 Camino are so bad that I'm going to replace the whole floor.I found a minty floor in a 86 Cutlass with bucket seat mounts and console mounts. My son and I cut out the whole floor just above the front seam and just under the rear seat and on the tops at the seams in the door. Took about a hour and a half...paid $15 CDN for the whole thing.
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