KLUTZ

I'm looking for opinions on the best plan of action for repairing this hole in my floorboard on my '73. The entire body is going to be a very long term project so I figure I should start there. Would a piece of sheet metal be worth using then glass over and under it? We may start on it this Saturday.

Thanks

Medfordautobody

So that appears to be the drivers side front left corner. It should be fiber glass there to begin with. I personally would opt for some spare patch (cut from a donor piece of glass). Dish out the edges and patch with tiger hair and mat. If you want a seemless look you will have flush edges, but if you are concerned with strength over looks, overlap the patch on the inside and fill with chopped glass in the seems. The floors there have a somewhat textured appearance already so it should not take too much finessing to look nice.

The only reason i would not use a metal patch is simply because it is not necessary and leaves you open to possible corrosion.

20mercury

I would not use a metal patch either, different materials, different expansion rates, maybe adhesive problems too.

I would do the following and have fixed smaller holes in this way:

1. clean up, dawn soap, & rough up area. and make sure it is dry.
2. tape up the outside with blue painters tape, you want to seal it up and make sure, nothing dribbles out during the repair.
3. Fiberglass cloth/epoxy repair on the inside with 4 or 5 layers of cloth. might want to do 2 or 3 layers, and then another 2 or 3 layers, sanding or roughing up in between to get good adhesion. Just build up until you get the thickness you want. And if you want to minimize the rough surface on the inside you can stick some more blue tape to the still wet cloth fiberglass mixture and then pull it off when cured.
4. when you pull the tape off the outside, if you do not like the surface you ended up with, voids, not smooth, ect. Just rough it up, and put a single layer of cloth on the outside, again with a blue tape cover to smooth it out and hold it in place until it cures and then remove.

Hope this helps.

DUB

My thoughts:

From what can see is that you have a split in the floor pan on the left side. In the curve... just before it goes up to meet with the door sill area.

I WOULD repair that first. And if it were in my shop...I would use a heat gun to remove any undercoating that may still be attached to the steel BEFORE I prepped it with a grinder CAREFULLY.

I (personally) would not use any type of degreaser and water....BUT after I scraped off as much of the undercoating. I would carefully use lacquer thinner and rough steel wool/red scotch-brite to remove and major areas of undercoating that remain so it does not plug up your grinding disc. USE common sense whenever you are using a solvent! GRIND it a moderate to slow speed. 24 or 46 grit.

Then...depending on the severity damage after grinding and integrity of the panel ...I would then make a determination on what to do next. SO...instead of throwing out numerous ideas on THIS repair. I will wait for photos and a very good description from you so I can understand what is going on in that area....if there is an actual bad area where I described or it is just how the photo looks. But chances are that THIS repair can be masked from eh underside and laminate from the inside.

NOW...the evident hole in the lower toe board area of the fire wall.

Many ideas can be thrown at you on this and OBVIOUSLY you can do what you choose.

Knowing that this is going to be a 'long term' project...I have a method of repairing this where you can not tell the hole was ever there from the outside But ...it depends if you WANT TO do it. It is not hard to do...but does take some time.

Because the firewall/toe board is bonded to the floor pan.....and this missing section of firewall has a bend in it to capture the front edge of your floor pan. So..laminating it from the inside is not what I would do IF you are wanting to make it undetectable...because the repair needs to be done from the outside.

SO...it depends on what you want and how much time you want to put into it....But your post did start with "Best plan of action".

DUB

KLUTZ

Thanks all for the responses. DUB, I'll get some better descriptive pictures to post on Saturday as the lighting isn't the best in the garage when I get home from work at night. To the right of the hole toward the transmission tunnel, there is no continued cracking and the cracking you do see along the side is about 14" long and about an inch in from the outside rail. No pieces are missing from that particular area.
I'm very familiar with removing undercoating as you learn a lot with that crap rebuilding 3 MGB's.
And yes.. the BEST plan of action is what I'm looking for. If I can do this right, there will be hope for the rest of the body.

DUB

KLUTZ,
I will be back on the forum in a few days....I will follow up when I get back.

I do see teh cark along teh floor pan by teh outsiode rail area.

SO...if you can post some photos that make you happy where things can be clearly seen....even if you have to use a pointer to show them out...then do so. because if I can see what you see ...I will know what to do...unless I need you to test structural integrity in the repair area....which obviously can not be detected by a photo.

DUB

KLUTZ

As promised DUB. Here are some more detailed pictures of the area in question. After spending more time looking at it, it appears to be more damaged then I first thought. There is no undercoating on the bottom of the car so that isn't a task necessary. At this point, perfection isn't a goal, just making it good and strong.

DUB

Great photos!!!!! Thanks.

The undercoating I was referring to is the stuff GM sprayed on the inside of your floor pans.

Now. You wrote: At this point, perfection isn't a goal, just making it good and strong.
So... You just want to repair and fill in these damaged areas and not worrying about how it looks....correct?

I need to ask you something that photos can not show...and then after that we can get started.

In these three photos...the horizontal bonding area of where the firewall is bonded to the floor pan. Is it stall attached very well or is the bond gone and the panels can separate and move???









DUB

KLUTZ

The bond is gone and they separate and move DUB. And yes, not worried about it looking perfect. It will be covered up with carpet anyway and no one will be crawling under it to inspect except me..

DUB

You have to open up this seam. By that I mean spread it apart so you can see what the bond area looks like....then....CLEAN it out by scuffing and beginning to prep it for new adhesive....and possibly washing it out with lacquer thinner ONLY IF IT IS OIL SATURATED. Then..verify that the factory bonding adhesive is not flaking of or wants to flake off. It it does...pop it off....grind it off. What ever it takes to get this seam ready for adhesive.

When that is done.

THEN...getting the undercoating off of the inside floor pan....using a heat gun if your ahve one works well with a razor blade inspection sticker type knife.

When that is done...we will begin to address the sunken floor pan that needs to be raised back up flat as you can see in these photos....if my memory serves me correctly....the floor pan is flat.





DUB

KLUTZ

Again, thanks.
It will be next Saturday before I get a chance to work on it hopefully due to.. well... work. Although with the Christmas season here I may have other commitments as well and might have to wait until the New Year.. I am going to take a look at the passenger side and compare though..

DUB

No worries. When you get started on it PM me ...just in case the post gets wiped off my screen.

DUB