rust...should i fix it

hey guys, well i picked up an xj a few weeks ago and today while i was under it i noticed the rust is worse than i thought. i replaced the rockers a few weeks ago and did alot of body work up top, the LCA mounts are solid as is the uniframe but that stripbetween the uniframe and rocker lip is pretty much toasted on the drivers side. i can push on the carpet in a few areas. i bought the rig for 850 and did some stuff to it like fixing power steering and such. i was gonna throw a little lift on and wheel it occasionally but i have a cj7 which i use for that mainly. i guess i wanna ask would it be worth it to try and patch this and drive it for a while or is it gonna be more hassle then its worth. the passenger side is pretty decent with no holes. just some surface stuff ill POR over if need be

Have you used POR's bed repair kit before? Worked really well on my kid's Scrambler. POR gets really hard when it dries. The kit has a huge piece of fiberglas fabric. You just bed the fiberglas in a couple coats of The POR-15 and it dries hard as a rock. I'd do that on a $850 rig before I'd spend a lot of time an $$ on welding in a new floorpan, if that is what you were thinking. If you already have the POR-15, just pick up some fabric and like Starsky (Ben Stiller) says "do it, do it".

I keep reading in here about this POR stuff. It sounds great, but I have never seen it. Where can I buy it?
TIA

A good durable alternative to welding is just to get some sheet metal and screw it in with self-tapping sheet metal screws. You can use whatever gooey waterproof sealant you like, POR, undercoating, roofing tar....

I've done many floors over the years this way. Welding is fine if you are restoring, but brings diminishing returns if you're just patching up a beater, especially if you continue to drive it where rust will grow. I've done it both ways, and been frustrated when a beautifully welded patch becomes surrounded two years later by holes.

Try to cut out the worst of the rust back to sound metal, make the patch with a good bit of overlap, fit it, apply your chosen goo to the margin of the hole, as a sort of gasket, then screw the patch on. Coat liberally with more goo on both sides and you're good to go.

MoFo said:

I keep reading in here about this POR stuff. It sounds great, but I have never seen it. Where can I buy it?
TIA

Click to expand...

POR-15