Opinions on rust repair in footwells

[cmsanford88]

Hey guys. The '76 project is moving along, starting to get into body work. The car is mercifully very good in terms of rust, the one spot I was aware of was the drivers footwell though. Removed the carpet today and it is indeed toast. Will be patching it. 

 

I wanted to ask about the condition of the passenger side tho. It's definitely seen moisture and has some heavy pitting in places. Nowhere near the level of the drivers side, and the panel passed the pick test. Would I be able to get away a good clean and some rust treatment here? (the photo of the passenger side looks a little like there are holes at the edge of the well, it's just remnants of the tar paper)

 

Thanks

Chris

Edited November 14, 2023 by cmsanford88

[Joesprocket]

POR-15 makes a good paste that I plan on using on my floorpans. Looks similar to your passenger side. Different story for your driver (sorry bout that). I came across it in this thread.

 

For general rust encapsulation, POR15 or Eastwood make decent products for treatment. I've had luck sealing my fuel tank and bottom of spare tire well.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Joesprocket

[cmsanford88]

Thank you Joe!

[TobyB]

You won't know until  you clean it all up.

 

I am completely unimpressed with por15.

 

t

 

[Fortlauderdalian]

If you can do it, replace them,  they look pretty roached. 

[tech71]

7 hours ago, TobyB said:

I am completely unimpressed with por15.

Me too, especially the paste.

You could get by for quite a while with a patch on driver side and thorough clean, prep, treat and seal on both sides, provided provided you take necessary steps to prevent future water intrusion.

Wonder what it looks like under the fiberboard sound insulation on tunnel and firewalls....😉

Edited November 16, 2023 by tech71

[Son of Marty]

Now's the time to get all the sound deadening out of the car and do a realistic assessment of the floors/firewall, be brutal everything that's thin will stay thin regardless of the coating, what are your plans for the car?

I'm a do it once, do it right, and be done, but that's me.

[lunarkingdom]

Sand blast or it will come back, I have 4 pans that look like that in my car so I bought 4 new pans and am going to replace them all.

I am getting too old to only fix it half way I only want to work this hard one time.

That rust is mostly from the pan drains leaking, new pans are one piece and get rid of that problem.

Edited November 16, 2023 by lunarkingdom

[cmsanford88]

Thanks for the additional input guys. As suggested, the more insulation that's come out the more rust has appeared. The passenger side towards the trans tunnel is almost as bad as the drivers side. Think the prudent thing is just to replace it all.

[cmsanford88]

After a very long messy day I got some good news on the rear footwells and trans tunnel, they look rock solid. Dry ice and an oscillating scraper ended up doing the trick. 

[tech71]

How does your pedal box look?

Looks nasty around there

['76mintgrün'02]

Nice work, removing the tar mats.  That's a nasty job, but now you know exactly what you're dealing with.

 

I'd suggest removing the floor plugs to get at the rust in the seams and putting them back in after painting them/the floor.  

 

 

(there was some rust under the rear seat bulkhead, so I took that out).

 

I used a tube of auto body 'caulk' when I put the plugs back.

 (the red tube)

 

 I put it between the pieces, before twisting them into place (after I tapped the tabs back into shape, so they would pull them in tight).

 

 

I also put circles of the new sound dampener over the plugs.  

 

 

The pieces of 1/8" thick wire they used to hold the insulation pads in place were rusted/weak/broken, so I ground those off and made new tabs out of sheet metal, then tack-welded those to the floor.  You can also see the patch panels I hammered out/welded in where the pan was rusty.  My puddle box needed patching too.

[cmsanford88]

Awesome info, thank you! Ordered my patch panels for the footwells, will start cutting into stuff in the next few weeks.

 

The pedal box is pretty solid luckily, the rust is pretty isolated to the actual floor panel. The car is Sienna Brown so the paint might be what's looking rough back there. The Firewall on the passenger side does have some rust, will probably need to do a small patch there.