Wow, check your floor pans! (rust)

I picked up a 96 2-door, 126k from a friend for $1300. Didn't think too much about the floor being too bad since I had an 87 with not much floor board rust and twice the milage. Took up the carpet on the 96 and almost fell on the ground. Basically the all the bottoms of the floor pans need to be replaced except for the rear driver area (only a small hole there). Anyway, I would say it's definately worth the trouble of at least lifting up your carpet (wet sponge) and checking under there if you've never done it.

I was going to weld the new sheet metal in on the top side, then use body sealer for the underside before I POR-15 it, undercoat it, then herc the interrior. Does anybody have a good brand of sealer they recommend?

jth877 said:

I picked up a 96 2-door, 126k from a friend for $1300. Didn't think too much about the floor being too bad since I had an 87 with not much floor board rust and twice the milage. Took up the carpet on the 96 and almost fell on the ground. Basically the all the bottoms of the floor pans need to be replaced except for the rear driver area (only a small hole there). Anyway, I would say it's definately worth the trouble of at least lifting up your carpet (wet sponge) and checking under there if you've never done it.

I was going to weld the new sheet metal in on the top side, then use body sealer for the underside before I POR-15 it, undercoat it, then herc the interrior. Does anybody have a good brand of sealer they recommend?

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I couldn't get body sealer to sit right, it would just lift off. I hit it with outdoor heavy duty silicone, worked like a champ, and half the price.

NHxj4x4 said:

..silicone...

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Old_man brought up an interesting point the other day -- silicone contains acetic acid. It may actually start the corrosion process on bare metal.

Maybe some types of silcone will have the acid because the RTV type was designed for sealing metal to metal? Just a theory...

Yep, i pulled my carpet and now i can see my whole front end as i drive about...I fawking HATE new england!

thisfirstlove said:

Yep, i pulled my carpet and now i can see my whole front end as i drive about...I fawking HATE new england!

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word

Mine still looks fine, 14 months so far

try 3M's 5200 it is for the marine world and stick to anything i highly recomend this for something you don't want to leak ever!

thisfirstlove said:

Yep, i pulled my carpet and now i can see my whole front end as i drive about...I fawking HATE new england!

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Yeah, I hate it too. I drive from here to Keene, Nashua/Milford, to Merideth all the time. Good thing is that there are at least 3 dunkin donuts in each town to get coffee.

Funny thing is, that the 87 spent it's entire life in the same county (saratoga) and it didn't rust nearly as much. I think DC cheap skated a little on the build process and materials.

I'll try and get my hands on some 3M5200...

Sounds like the Lebaron I used to own, luckily my XJ hasn't started that yet!

my 96 is pretty shot too....welding starts next week

tealcherokee said:

my 96 is pretty shot too....welding starts next week

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Is this indicative of the 96 model year? I think 95 would have the same problem because the floor changed that year....

jth877 said:

Is this indicative of the 96 model year? I think 95 would have the same problem because the floor changed that year....

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uhm....Dude...Its INDICATIVE OF ALL YEARS.

not here

My 90's got it in the cargo area, but not too bad.

I pulled my carpet a few weeks ago when the carpet got soaked due to the bad door weatherstripping and I noticed I was looking at the ground through the floors. This also explains why my seat has been creaking and seeming to move kinda funny.

A couple of of slightly crunched hoods from the body shop will fix it in a couple wekks.

I work for a glass and mirror company, and we have a silicone called "neutra-cure". If you use silicone behind a mirror, it will blacken up and get crappy after a bit. So any work done around mirrors gets neutracure because it has little or no acid. I don't know where you could find it besides glazer suppliers, but it might be worth a try....

Had to replace the whole driver's side floor pan on my XJ. What a PITA! I'm no body guy but I had a mig, torch and BFH. I spent a LOT of time heating and beating to get it molded right. After I applied POR15 to both sides and Herculined(the roll on/paint on stuff) just the interior. Have to look REALLY close now to tell.

One tip, POR15 doesn't adhere very well to new metal. Make sure to prep the new metal really well as per the instructions. I have spots on the underside where the POR15 is flaking off the new metal cause it didn't bond properly.

thisfirstlove said:

Yep, i pulled my carpet and now i can see my whole front end as i drive about...I fawking HATE new england!

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It's not just new england its the midwest too. It's because Ohio loves to use tons of salt on the roads in the winter. The floors in my 94 are almost completely gone. Since I cant weld I am going to take it to a body shop here before to long to get an estimate on how much it is going to cost me to fix it.

joecool said:

It's not just new england its the midwest too. It's because Ohio loves to use tons of salt on the roads in the winter. The floors in my 94 are almost completely gone. Since I cant weld I am going to take it to a body shop here before to long to get an estimate on how much it is going to cost me to fix it.

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Ditto on the midwest thing. My 90 has no rust actually through but the floor is 80% brown bubbles. Im thinking a good sanding and painting the interior is in order. Iowa loves the salt too.

Not to bring up an thread from the dead or nothing butt:compwork:............

I have a 99' 4.0 4 door 126,xxx mi. This past summer I had the driverside carpet back w/no issues except for some rust. I had it back because I had an issue w/the door seal leaking and there was no holes or cracks. So I finally got the money together to get a new OEM door seal and today I took everything apart to replace the weather seal and upon pulling the carpet back to get it dry I saw a crack, inline w/the door side bolt in the seat, so I figured no biggie I would just patch it up and be done with it. So I started vacuming the floor pan and a piece .5" w X 2" long came up.:shocked:

So I took a trip to my old shop were I was sheet metal mech. and went dumpster shopping and found an ample amount of metal.

So here are my plans, cut 2 patches big enough to cover each hole, crack, and goop tons of RTV silicone on either side of the hole and sandwich the floor with the new sheet metal. This is jus temporary until this summer when I intend on taking all the carpet up and getting a real look as to whats going on down under.

I'm doing this for now b/c I don't have the time to go at this full bore right now, in the summer when I take out all the carpet to sounddeaden the whole truck I'll have alot more access to it all.

Finally the question, thanks for sticking in there, do you'se think this will suffice for now? I did'nt expect it to be this bad.