SLOWING down the rust monster..........

[rustycowll69]

Those vinyl trunk mats are NOT good! You are right about that body sealer, once some moisture gets under it, look out! Got a leak and get moisture under your carpet, it will begin to rust.. Those old cars that came with the rubber (or is it sort a vinyl?) floor covering and not carpet, they rust pretty bad.
Every person that owns one of these old cars needs to see first hand how rust forms. I don't mean the obvious. Buddy of mine had been a body man for 10 years. He pointed out to where he replaced a rear quarter and overlap the patch or original metal TOO much. This was on a 70 roadrunner he had bought new. It had started to bubble there some years later. He explained a butt weld was not in his cards, but he should have only overlaps it just as little as possible. Back then there was no weld thru primer to help either.
Rust never sleeps, but we can do all we an to slow it wayyyyyy down!

as for rubber floor mats, instead of carpet, they are convenient, but some people think you can just hose the floor out. Well to a certain extent that's true, but if you get any water near the mat edges(nearly impossible not to) the water will wrap around and suck into the lowest spots and soaks that jute padding, and that rubber floor mat just holds the moisture in forever. At least with carpeting, the wet spot will show and dry out once in awhile, so at least you're aware there's a problem. But with rubber floor mats, it's hidden and you may not even know there's a leak.

 

[TF360]

A lot of the new trunk mats come with a cotton material on the back side- I guess to prevent rust

 

[burrpenick]

A lot of the new trunk mats come with a cotton material on the back side- I guess to prevent rust

Cotton backing may help some, but I'd never have one- they do look good on factory restos but definitely collect moisture under them.

 

[rich006]

I have the same 2 rust issues. You can see what I did and my lessons learned in this thread. I started with the intent to weld in new sheet metal but in the end I used epoxy filler. It worked well in the trunk/quarter area but not at all in the quarter/rocker area.