Ever wondered how much rust is under your sound / heat foam on the floorboard?

f22beaver

f22beaver

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Joined
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25
Location
Indianapolis
Then it's your lucky day. Here's one data point. Truth be told, it's actually pretty solid quite a ways up there. But obviously with that surface rust forming and the rust inching that way up it was only a matter of time before it got there and ate it all up.

The plan is to cut it out, get down to clean metal on the edges, then 3M panel bond with a 1" overlap. My weld technique is not good enough for me to try the old school way. Then I will seal up seams on the bottom and POR15 the underneath. Then I'll primer and paint the top.

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Yeah , that can't be good .
Must have had trapped water under carpet
for awhile . Looking at pics plugs are in so was
never drained.
Maybe at one point or more Jeep was submarined
or top off while it rained and was never properly
drained . Cause that my friend is not normal .
 
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Speartip said:
Yeah , that can't be good .
Must have had trapped water under carpet
for awhile . Looking at pics plugs are in so was
never drained.
Maybe at one point or more Jeep was submarined
or top off while it rained and was never properly
drained . Cause that my friend is not normal .
Click to expand...
Exactly my thoughts. The rest of the entire interior floor is great, so is the bottom all around. Makes me think the drivers side T-top was off often with rain. Drives me crazy because the plugs are there for a reason, use them!!!!
 
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Got some cutting done today. Waiting until I can get some flap wheels tomorrow to clean up paint and rust. Grinding wheel too slow and air grinder I think I have the wrong grits.

The panel bond seems very particular about clean metal so I'm just going to keep moving up and out until I have clean metal all around then cut to that point.

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f22beaver said:
Got some cutting done today. Waiting until I can get some flap wheels tomorrow to clean up paint and rust. Grinding wheel too slow and air grinder I think I have the wrong grits.

The panel bond seems very particular about clean metal so I'm just going to keep moving up and out until I have clean metal all around then cut to that point.

View attachment 122736
Click to expand...

Looking good . I’m asking cause never had to do this before . Are you just replacing with a piece of sheet metal or are you able to purchase a floor board ?
How were you thinking of bonding new sheetmetal?
Might be an idea to put a drain in with a plug just in case .
 
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Speartip said:
Looking good . I’m asking cause never had to do this before . Are you just replacing with a piece of sheet metal or are you able to purchase a floor board ?
How were you thinking of bonding new sheetmetal?
Might be an idea to put a drain in with a plug just in case .
Click to expand...
You can actually buy a replacement floorboard, so it has the same ribbing and drain holes as OE. But as it will come to me it's much bigger than the space I need, so I'll cut it down to a size that is basically whatever point I find clean metal after I grind off paint and rust.

For attaching I'll use 3M's panel bond 8115. Some manufacturers use this stuff from the factory now. It is insanely strong and gives a strength equivalent to, arguably better, then welding. But I will have a lip where I have overlap, so if that was non-negotiable to somebody then they would have to weld.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_LB/p/d/v000056367/
 
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f22beaver said:
You can actually buy a replacement floorboard, so it has the same ribbing and drain holes as OE. But as it will come to me it's much bigger than the space I need, so I'll cut it down to a size that is basically whatever point I find clean metal after I grind off paint and rust.

For attaching I'll use 3M's panel bond 8115. Some manufacturers use this stuff from the factory now. It is insanely strong and gives a strength equivalent to, arguably better, then welding. But I will have a lip where I have overlap, so if that was non-negotiable to somebody then they would have to weld.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_LB/p/d/v000056367/
Click to expand...
Ohhh ok . Well that makes it a bit easier if you can purchase matching floor board and bond with an adhesive as opposed to welding .
Cool project . Keep us up to date if you wouldn’t mind . Would like to see when finished
 
Speartip said:
Ohhh ok . Well that makes it a bit easier if you can purchase matching floor board and bond with an adhesive as opposed to welding .
Cool project . Keep us up to date if you wouldn’t mind . Would like to see when finished
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I'm no metal guy but I'm pretty happy with this. Still a little bit of metal work to do, and I need to sand down a few painted areas. But I feel good that I cut out all rust, and that was the primary objective. It feels very solid without the structural adhesive.

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Rebooting an old thread here because I too had some rain leakage on both driver and passenger sides doors. I check my passenger floor approx two months ago because that seemed to be the side with a more aggressive leak. To my surprise, the floor was pristine. Unfortunately the driver side was not:

BEFORE CLEANING:
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AFTER CLEANING:
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There's some pinholes but it's not bad enough to replace the metal. Least not to me. I cleaned up the existing rust with a wire wheel and then sprayed a mix of phosphoric acid and water to convert and stop the rust. I plan to use fiberglass to strengthen the metal and coat it with primer and factory paint.

Always something!
 
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I have had leakage ( yes, I am old, not the Depends type yet) since I pulled the JK out of the lot new. So every spring for the last 13yrs I pull the carpets up and hose down the salt and re apply some rocker guard. No issues yet with rust.
 
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TROY66/68 said:
I have had leakage ( yes, I am old, not the Depends type yet) since I pulled the JK out of the lot new. So every spring for the last 13yrs I pull the carpets up and hose down the salt and re apply some rocker guard. No issues yet with rust.
Click to expand...
Ya, previous owner (a good friend of mine) didn't know much about the DIY's of Wranglers. He took it to shops for anything that needed fixing or maintaining. Hence why he missed this potential nightmare.
 
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