Help with rust repair part Deux

[Russ Keller]

Now the carpet is out and I'm sniffing around.

Up under the dash on the firewall there was all this seat stuffing poking out of a little hole that when vacuumed out turned out to be a big nasty hole with a bunch of rat debri...

Not sure what to do here.  The firewall on the engine side looks perfect so there must be a cavity here between the upper part of the floorboard and the engine firewall.

I can see some wiring up in there but have no clue what the best plan of action is here.  The rest of the car just got out of paint and this wasn't addressed by the previous owner before paint...

Help and advice greatly appreciated.

 

 

['76mintgrün'02]

I think it makes more sense for you to lump your rust repairs into the same thread.  You might want to add part trois to this one.

 

 

[Russ Keller]

OK thanks,

Here's the other two area's

Rat Hole and Passenger inner rocker/footrest hole.

Sorry it posted the rocker pic 1st and rotated it 90 degrees...

The rat hole is 2nd and was inverted???

Edited August 4, 2020 by Russ Keller

[dasfrogger]

@eastsidebimmer - this looks similar to your issue, yeah?

[tech71]

Just painted huh, bummer.

I think the area you are looking into there is the space under the fusebox, thats where some of the wires you see in there are going.

Thats a really, really tough area to repair. You could remove the screws holding you fusebox down, lift it up (carefully) and check it out from another angle.  Need to see how bad it looks inside there.

Of course PO ignored that rust, repairing that area is major league structural stuff.

Sorry.

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by tech71

['76mintgrün'02]

Is that the back side of some tape behind the rust?

[Russ Keller]

that gray bit is the end of a metal floorboard plate.

[tech71]

I dunno, cant even speculate. Way beyond my02 experience/ expertise.

 

OP you should browse some of the blogs, there are some structural heavy hitters doing the kind of work involved to repair that correctly. 

On a practical level? really not much you can do except stop what ever is doing that, treat it, dont let anything else bad happen there and drive it. hopefully the area under the fusebox is not disintegrated. 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by tech71

[D.martijn]

The middle flange that's rusted it your strut brace if I'm not mistaken.

Pretty structural piece IMHO, makes me wonder how much rust is elsewhere ..

[VWJake]

That won’t be any fun to repair. As long as the A sheet, wing sheets, and inner fender are still securely bound together I’d cut out a large enough section of firewall to make the repair from a donor and weld it in. After that’s at least stitched in I’d pull the fender off and remove the wing sheet to have a good long look/poke around. Patch anything else you find that’s thin (likely a lot) weld on a new wing sheet and probably an A panel as well, treat with your favorite flavor of rust converter/arrester/sealer, and repaint as needed. 
 

best to pull the engine/trans/front Suspension/firewall pad/wiring harness (at a minimum) before getting started on this. 
 

I thought about this same repair on tub 1664819 (‘69 ‘02). Instead it got chopped up into hundreds of pieces to help save my other two.
 

-that’s my take. Take it for what you will

Edited August 6, 2020 by VWJake

[Russ Keller]

I just ordered a roller hoop.

We’ll take off the drivers fender, windshield & dash then probably cut that area out from inside the car, treat or take out as much rust as possible from underneath, fab a new piece and stitch it in.

[tech71]

Sounds like a decent plan, hopefully we can follow your progress.

I for one am interested?

[ray_]

Howdy,

 

What does the rest of that car look like?

 

Cheers,

[Russ Keller]

I just ordered a roller hoop.

We’ll take off the drivers fender, windshield & dash then probably cut that area out from inside the car, treat or take out as much rust as possible from underneath, fab a new piece and stitch it in.

Rest of the cars not terrible.