Found some rust

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hbbuddha

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In the drivers side foot well / floor pan.



I found this rust a few days ago and was waiting until I removed the windshield to see if I had any rust under the gaskets. Lucky I'm rust free around the windshield except a little bit of surface rust. No big deal there.

So, floor pan options. 1) replace floor pan? There is a clean one near me for sale for around $250. Or 2) since the rust isn't that bad and the floor is still pretty solid, a trick I did years ago on my buddy's VW Bug was to lay fiber glass cloth and use por15 as a resin. It worked great to hold his beater together but is it good enough for my car. It's not like anybody will see it but if I'm spending good money on this car...

If I replace the floor pan, is it actually welded in place? It almost looks like it's tarred in place. If I go with the fiberglass, I've used Chassis Saver and Por15 before with success, how well does Rustolium work?

Hillbillybuddha
 
It is spot welded in. To replace drill the spot welds out to remove the old one then fit the replacement then remove and drill 5/16" holes in the location where the factory spot welds were. re fit and plug weld the holes. Also you will
Need to cut the remaining sides with a cutoff wheel and butt weld those seams.
The floor pan is actually two pieces front and rear.
 
That looks more surface than anything, at this point. You could wire wheel it as clean as you can and get some rust neutralizer, Rustoleum makes a product that I used and it seemed to work quite well. You paint it on and as it dries it will almost turn black. Once dry you can prime and paint it.




If this is a full resto then replacing the pan would be optimal.
 

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To be more clear the pan is spot welded to the firewall and the front pillar along the inner rocker
Panel and to the frame rail. So depending on how much you wanna replace you may or may not cut the spot welds along the firewall and pillar/inner rocker
Most just fit the replacement pan in place then mark around it. Then cut the lines and drill the
spot welds along the frame rails to remove the rusty pan. Pay close attention when cutting across the frame rails as to not cut them.
 
Thanks for the info on the pan being spot welded.

As for it just being surface rust, for the most part it is but there are about a half dozen pin holes in the rust and one hole about the size of the tip of my pinky finger. The picture was taken after wire wheeling it. That's why I was thinking of using the fiberglass. Just to fill in the few holes I do have.

This is a full restro (kinda) it's a 74 Dart, 73 Duster front end, 2001 durango 5.9. So kind of a Scamp. It's for me as I don't think the year / model will ever be worth much but I don't want to build a beater or Rat Rod, I want something nice.
 
I'd go more by how solid it feels. You should be able to get
It cleaner with a coarse wire wheel. I use a wheel on a drill and can often get a better bite by reversing the drill frequently. Epoxy will bond to it and add some strength. Maybe a small metal patch welded in under the gas pedal and coat the rest? I guess it depends some on what the rest of the car looks like. Or, if you just keep your foot on the gas it won't matter...
 
From my experience, a few pinholes in a large rusty area indicates that the sheet metal has been thinned down by rust over time. The pinholes, of course, are the thinnest areas.
 
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