I Didn't Know Just How Screwed I Was ...

... until I ripped up the carpet in the trunk.

Let me back up some. Long story short: I flooded the XJ about a month ago and I've had to rip apart the interior. I'm replacing the carpet & I've been concentrating on the passenger area because the cargo area seemed as though it had barely got wet. The front is in pretty good shape:
First-look after taking carpet out:




After washing and before repair/paint: Yellow marks show where I found rust. Really small areas, 2 tiny holes. Not bad.




So now the front has been JB welded, partially plugged & painted and today I pull back the cargo carpet to find this:







Cancer:




This brings us to why I'm here. It looks like surface rust in the pictures, but in many places it's way past that. I really need advice as to what my next move should be. I've heard of people putting new floor pans in the front, but is that even possible in the rear? Can the sheet metal be replaced? Is any of this structural?

Tomorrow I'm going to do a rust treatment to see the true condition of the areas that don't already have holes. But to me it doesn't look good. Any advice, pointers, etc?

Looks like how I'd expect it to look. I'm sure people have replaced the sheet metal. Doesn't look structural to me.

That doesn't look like 30 days worth of rust. I would guess your roof rack or rear windows are leaking.

Technically its all "structural", being unibody and all. I wouldn't be worried about most of it, Grind/wire brush the surface stuff and repaint.

For the rust through, If you've never replaced sheet metal before; this might be a good place to start. The areas look small and not too vitally important. If you have access to a MIG welder and want to give it a try, under the carpet in the cargo area would be a great place to hide your learning experiences.

Buying a replacement floor pan would be overkill for small areas, I would start with removing anything you can deform by jabbing with a screwdriver, Trim the area even, and form a piece sheet (16ga IIRC) to fit the opening and surrounding shapes. Try to get the gaps even and as small as possible.

You might even want to overlap slightly, install the patch from the bottom and weld from the top.

Small well spaced tack welds will prevent warping and allow you to form as you go, to keep the gaps right.

I would drop the fuel tank though.

It is a Jeep, not a $500K showcar, cleaning the area and painting might be sufficient to prevent it spreading. Learning to repair it properly might be fun.

That is definitely not recent rust... that's a few years worth at least.

My XJ has it way, WAY worse - my carpet is falling through the hole in the rear right corner so badly that a spare d30 shaft with a unit bearing on it will sag down through and nearly fall out onto the road. Consider yourself luck :shocked:

Definitely overlap slightly (~1/2") it is way easier to avoid blow-through while welding if you do so. Becomes almost like welding exhaust tubing, which is easy once you get a little practice in, I taught my brother to weld fluxcore passably enough to do exhaust/hidden floor panels in about two hours last weekend and he's not particularly mechanically inclined.

Some of the rust might be fairly recent, but most of it has been there - in person it's not hard to tell. The 2 plates on the left & right corners under the seat (what are they?) are brittle & fragile. The hole pictured, I have seen from the underside a long time ago, but didn't realize that it went all the way thru. I chemically treated the area before work this morning, and tomorrow I'll wire wheel some more. As for welding ...

Guys, welding is definitely out for me. I don't have a garage, altho I have the use of a friend's. I wouldn't know a welder if it sat on my lap. And as a woman living in a small city ... well ... I'll prolly never get to know one, lol.

I do know people who can do the job, tho. I hope to take them the pics in the morning to get an evaluation. Can't take the XJ yet since it's still apart.

So we think this isn't that big a deal, huh? I'm breathing a little easier.

See gambit, it might not be a $500K show car, it might "just" be a Jeep, but as far as I'm concerned it might as well be.

gambit4000s said:

I would guess your roof rack or rear windows are leaking.

Click to expand...

I don't think so. Wouldn't there be signs if a roof rack leak on the headliner? Or in the body panels? I've checked and there's no sign (yet) of any leaks. Gonna go over it some more on Thursday.

Thanks guys ... will add updates.

This looks like some water staining here

See gambit, it might not be a $500K show car, it might "just" be a Jeep, but as far as I'm concerned it might as well be.

Click to expand...

I was referring to the repair, No one will be judging you on the repair. It needs to function not to be wet sanded/mirror polished. Being under the carpet, It would be a good place to learn if you are so inclined.

PS Being female does not preclude you from welding.

I still say you have it easy...

What I discovered under my carpet when I went to install my OBA compressor properly:


Left corner:


Right corner:


I knew I had rust problems, but hadn't realized they had gotten that bad :shocked::scared:

So far I've torn out about 2/3 of the rusty floor pan. I'm going to have to put frame stiffeners on the right frame rail RIGHT NOW (making my own) because it's rotted out way too much for my liking. The left frame rail is probably getting them while I'm at it. This isn't how I wanted to spend my weekend... but I guess it's gotta get done :dunno:

ive seen a thread in modified tech that showed a guy replacing his rear floorpans, seach "project rusty nail"

kastein said:

I still say you have it easy...

I knew I had rust problems, but hadn't realized they had gotten that bad :shocked::scared:

So far I've torn out about 2/3 of the rusty floor pan. I'm going to have to put frame stiffeners on the right frame rail RIGHT NOW (making my own) because it's rotted out way too much for my liking. The left frame rail is probably getting them while I'm at it. This isn't how I wanted to spend my weekend... but I guess it's gotta get done :dunno:

Click to expand...

Damn K ... we're brothers-in-rust, huh?

If that were mine I'd just sit down & cry. But you're right; I do realize that I've been fortunate with regards to rust - all things considered. But for me, even what I have is too much. The front just had me feeling smug. Can't understand why the rear would be worse when it's higher off the ground than the front.

88xj thanks for the lead!

Yeah... This thing is a disaster. I knew it was bad but was hoping to put it off till after my move. Ah well, between yesterday and today I've managed to remove 95% of the rusty sheetmetal I'm going to replace (for now, the rest is getting done eventually) and will be spending either today or tomorrow evening welding in new metal depending on how long the last 5% of rust along the edges takes. Going to have to rebuild the shackle pockets and rear end of the right frame rail, too

Fscking road salt... This is why I don't drive my XJ in the winter. That and I can't find 33" snow tires

Here's my old 94 and the reason I got rid of it.





The wheel wells were flapping in the wind. I figured I could try and salvage it but not having anything worth welding to made that decision easy.



The front floors and rockers were just as bad.

Front floors on mine are like that, the carpet pushes up under my left foot when I hit a big puddle.

Rear floors are now nonexistent, but my frame is 3/16" steel now and my shock crossmembers and most of my gas tank support are the same. Floors are going to be 16ga (a bit thicker than stock) unless I decide to care enough to purchase a sheet of 14 or 12.

I have a rust free 01 & would like to keep it that way,
What is the best way to prevent rust like above?
Rip out all the carpets & have everything Lin-x-ed?

Stay away from road salt... pull the carpet and apply bedliner of choice... don't use selftappers on ANYTHING because they cut through the coating and leave a path for moisture to penetrate along the threads. Careful to coat spotwelds VERY heavily, the metal flexes slightly around them and cracks paint, most of the rust on mine started around spotwelds or self tapping screws.

Also make sure you get the underside of the vehicle undercoated as heavily as you can.

There are some places you just can't get to very well - the insides of the frame rails, the inside of the rear shock absorber crossmember, the inside of each gas tank support frame member, and the area between pieces of metal (floor and frame rails etc are the worst) that are spot welded together. Inside the rockers is another great spot for horror to lurk and eat your metal, the rockers rust from the inside out which is why the paint looks great till the day it starts bubbling, by then it's far too late.

If you can stomach it, drill a few drain holes in the rockers and spray the cut metal where you drilled with a few coats of primer. Anything to let moisture out of the sealed areas will help. Rubberized undercoating under the jeep, bed liner inside - and get to the rust early. I'm glad I moved to California before another Utah winter tore up my 98...

Between the beach in the summer & the road salt in winter my xj takes a beating.
Twice a year (After striped bass season ends on 12/15 & after winter ends) I steam clean the under side then wire brush any visible rust (There is usually nothing heavy) Then I prime with a rust converting primer & Paint with good paint, I like the rustoleum hammered finish for the axles, suspension & undercarriage. I repeat on any spots that look like rust is setting in like the rockers & bottom of the doors, except I use factory matching paint.

My protofab sliders were holding sand in the channels & rusting, I removed them for now, I think a 1 piece rail like AJs is better for my beach use.
What Undercoating do you guys recommend?

garr said:

I have a rust free 01 & would like to keep it that way,
What is the best way to prevent rust like above?
Rip out all the carpets & have everything Lin-x-ed?

Click to expand...

I think the single most important way to protect your XJ from rust is to keep it clean. A lot of guys like to say - oh it's a Jeep, it's supposed to be muddy. Bullshit. After every wheeling trip I hit the carwash before I get home, mostly because I don't want the stuff baked on. I drive it in the winter, and if I go thru salty stuff, the first day that I can hold a pressure hose without freezing my fingers off, finds me washing the undercarriage.

Then paint. Rubberized undercoating is probably best, but any paint heavily/properly applied will help. Be obsessive looking for bare metal under there. I believe that once you're sure that there are no internal leaks or rust already, most of your efforts should go to the exterior. After all, all moisture will come from outside.

I think I can safely say that at 18 years old, my NEastern XJ could have far more rust if I hadn't been so anal. And if I had had the guts to pull up the carpet sooner & simply check things out, the trunk would not have got that far. But the "large" hole pictured is the only one I have apart from some pinholes I pointed to. And to think that I saw that cancer long ago from under the XJ, but I had no idea what I was looking at.

Live & Learn.

Undercoating hides rust and really doesn't do much. Unless you access to the stuff they use at the factory it is a waste of time and money.

POR-15 works as advertised when you use the cleaner and acid metal prep to kill the rust. Any missing metal should be replaced if you are doing a proper repair.

The best you can do to prevent rust is wash the vehicle as often as possible and catch any rust before it spreads. The self service car washer whit the power washer spray guns are better then just driving through an automatic car wash. Every spring I drive out into the yard and use the garden hose on every frame opening and factory drain hole to flush out any mud, sand, and road salt.

Well yeah ... before painting I chemically treat surface rust with this stuff I get at Home Depot called "The Must For Rust" Works great. Guess I should have specified. I keep doing that on my rock rails, but soon I'll have to just strip them down & re-do them. Have used Royal Jelly in the past when I was doing some stuff for a friend, but it seems like too much work.

But yeah - wash, wash, wash ...