Replace Floorboards & Coat Interior

Mar 1998

Background | Installation | Cost | Postscript

Background

When I first took it in to have a roll cage installed, Leonard informed me that there was nothing to attach the cage to. My floorboards were so rusted that the cage would just fall through. He also discovered that some of the body mounts were rusted and that the tub was not well connected. He ran a 3" strip of 1/4" steel the length of the tub under each side to provide a solid mounting point for the tub.

With the body in place and secure, he sent me home and suggested that I strip down the interior to see how bad the rust was so we could determine the next step.

Installation

The first thing I had to do was remove all of the interior. At first, I didn't have a clue how to do this, but after looking things over a bit, it was pretty obvious. Everything is just bolted in, so I grabbed a socket wrench and started in. Out came seats, seat belts, soft top, spare tire, and a few other misc. things I had bolted in.

A large portion of the interior had been covered with black indoor/outdoor carpet. When I pulled it up, I found a mess. Somebody had tried to weld in some plates to patch up rust holes, and it was the worst welding job I have ever seen. Much of the floorboards and the the areas under the seats were badly rusted. The rest of the interior was covered with a ton of sticky yellow glue that was used to hold down the carpet.

The next step was to start stripping. I bought several sizes and shapes of wire wheels for my drill and spent approximately 20 hours getting all the glue, rust, and paint off.

Once I could see what I was working with, I could tell that the rust was mostly confined to the floorboards, and I started cutting it out. The idea was to make as rectangular an area as possible to make it easier to fit new metal in its place. I used a combination of cut-off wheels for my drill, dremmel, and circular saw, jig saw, drills, and a file. Eventually, I had two large rectangular holes cut in each floorboard.

At this point I needed help since I don't have a welder and wouldn't know how to use it if I did. A fellow BushHacker, Jim Williams, offered to help with the project. My first problem was finding a source for metal to work with. Jim came through for me here. He is a mechanical engineer for Intel, and he had some sheetmetal parts from some old prototype computers that had been discarded. I used these pieces to create new floorboards for the passenger and driver sides. Now I need to get a windsheild sticker that says: ;-)

Once I had the metal cut and bent to the right shapes, I used a few pop rivets to hold it in place and drove it over to Jim's to get the welding done. Since the metal in the tub was so corroded and thin, it turned out to be more of a project than Jim had planned on, but he eventually figured out a system that seemed to work pretty well, and completed the job just as the need for pizza reached the critical level. ;-) I learned one thing from watching Jim. Don't weld in Birkies! And he wonders why his sock have burn holes in them... ;-)

Once everything was welded in place, I used Jim's die grinder to smooth down the welds. Then I taped the edges and sprayed the whole thing with Extend. It is a rust converter/prohibiter that should help prevent the disease from returning and spreading. Next I used some spray-on bed liner that can in a spray can from Napa Auto. The inside looks great now, and I can just hose it out when it gets dirty.

Cost

Postscript