Rusty '96 - I'm in love with it!

First all - this forum is amazing, such a wealth of information.

Here's my story and questions:

I bought a 1996 XJ, 4wd, manual, about two years ago - my first jeep. The past six months I have changed rear shocks (broke all four bolts), slave and master cylinder, new tires, brake discs and rotors in the front etc.. etc...

Needless to say, I am falling in love with this jeep, and saving $$ on self-repairs!!

Question: Rust, passenger and drivers floor panels are horrible, along with the cargo area, and above the muffler is probably the worst (I live in boston, heavy salt).....Should I purchase heavy steel plates, try to shape? Should i purchase JC Whitney panels, and learn how to weld??

OR, do you just wait until your absolutely HAVE TO start addressing the rusted out floor of your XJ...

Im scared, alone, and crying, I love my jeep and don't want it to rust out from under me!!

Thanks in advance.:explosion

just read like 100 posts about floor pan rust...oh boy, my only real question is, can a complete amatuer welder do it?

will the sheet metal from home depot plus a cheap mig welder do the job??

you should learn all about rivets.
Are then nice and clean like welds? Nope
Do they work, and can they be done by a rank amateur? Yep.

agreed - but lets say im going to replace almost the entire floor - from firewall to tailgate...leaving only little original material...wouldn't i have to drill 700 holes, with 700 rivets, then seal every rivel underneath and from above with roof tar or POR-15 (or a similar product), then undercoat the entire thing with a rustoleum, or rust inhibitor??

thats a lot of rivets to bondo, patch, seal, whatever....am i right? OR is the learning curve to mig weld decently and the price of a cheap welder just too high?

oh yeah - one more question - with the thicker guage steel, can you get aluminum rivets that will hold forever?

i had a similar problem on my 93 when i bought it. being an ameture to fixing bodies, i think i did pretty good and it held up. i only had to replace the pass. floor form a lil before the fire wall to the rear seat bracket. i used a 2 1/2x4ft section of 1/8in alum diamond plate. cut out and sanded the rust, roughly cut metal to shape, pounded with hammer for the contour of tranny hump.then i laid down a thick bead of clear silicone caulk around the diameter off the hole. to seal it. put in the dia.plate. used sheet metal screws(about 70) all the way around. then i truckbed coated it.(spray stuff from Advanced)i also under coated the bottom of that area. worked like a charm. i would suggest different truck bed coat as that stuff is cheap and peals. i will try to post the pic of this tomorow. hope that helped. oh yeah, total cost was like $50.

Sure you can do it...The first thing I ever welded in my life was the driver side floor on my 89.I got the same gauge replacement material as the floor(16 or 18 ga??don't remember right now) and practiced on scrap first until I felt confident enough.

The key is to use a low setting so you don't blow through the thin sheet metal and make little beads spaced a few inches apart to fight warping from heat.Then after I was done I used this epoxy as a sealer:http://www.right-tool.com/pc7epoxypaste.html.

hth

thanks for the replies...

i'm leaning towards rivets or sheet metal screws sealed with epoxy, then coated...a welder will really set me back...sheet metal and fasteners are really cheap - i think i can make a patch that will last another 100K mi!!

does anyone have a picture of their riveted or screwed floor?

another note - above my muffler is the worst spot, is this a tough spot to access?? i'm planning on patching that area when the exhaust system is removed.

Do not use aluminum rivets. They will corrode off long before your patches fail. Similarly, do not use aluminum for your patches if possible, because you'll have galvanic corrosion. Stick to steel. If you can find them, old metal shower stalls make ideal patching material, just the right thickness, flat, easily cut, and already painted. Some are even galvanized. Don't bother to go too heavy, or you'll end up unable to bend to fit. Once you get into the floor, you'll almost certainly find rust going around corners, and working its way up the center hump. You'll need metal you can bend. If you have access to junk cars, a roof panel can be a good resource too. So can door panels, etc. for the smaller patches.

If you patch without welding, I recommend self-drilling, self-tapping sheet metal screws. Get short ones with hex heads, and they will work very well. Get a few longer ones too for difficult bends where they will need to draw the parts together. Cut back to sound metal, make the patch an inch or two bigger than the hole, and screw it on. For best results, put undercoating, roofing tar, etc. on the edge before screwing it down, and it will act as a gasket.

A complete amateur welder can do a great job on this with patience and the right equipment, but you will need a serviceable wire feed welder, and lots and lots of time and lots and lots of wire. If you work outdoors, stick to flux core, but if you have shelter, MIG is better. The simple reason why a total amateur welder can do well on this is simply that by the time you are done, you will no longer be a beginner. You will have had a very good lesson in how to avoid burning holes in stuff, how to patch the ones you have burned, how to bridge gaps, how rusty can metal be without disappearing in a puff of white sparks, etc. etc. This is the perfect training ground if you want to learn sheet metal welding, since a little warping and sloppiness are tolerable.

However, with that said, you should weigh your options carefully. How long do you realistically expect this XJ to last, and what are you expecting to spend on it? If this is not a true restoration project, and especially if you live in the rust belt, a welded-in repair might be more effort than it's worth. A neatly done screw in patch job will last for years and cost nearly nothing.

Matthew Currie said:

However, with that said, you should weigh your options carefully. How long do you realistically expect this XJ to last, and what are you expecting to spend on it? If this is not a true restoration project, and especially if you live in the rust belt, a welded-in repair might be more effort than it's worth. A neatly done screw in patch job will last for years and cost nearly nothing.

Click to expand...

EXACTLY what i wanted to hear....the rig has 115k on it now, i like it more everyday - realistically, i need it to last another 5 years....

So, im definately going to do your sheet metal screw and roof-tar gasket option...

Exhaust needs to be completely replaced, so that's next, and while the exhaust is out - i'll tackle the hole above the muffler.

thanks a million for such a concise description of my options.

Just in case you didn't know, even if your going to pop rivet patch panels, cut out the rusted metal, DO NOT just pop rivet a panel over a rusted/rotted section, you have to stop the rust as well, by cutting the rot and treating/painting the remaining metal. Don't cut out the rot/rust and the patch will fall out of the floor a couple of months later thru the rust hole that grew bigger than the patch.

You can cut the rotted section with a saw-all, dremel or angle grinder w/ a cutting disc. The angle grinder would probably be the most effective, you can find a cheapo for like $30, with a dremel you'll probably spend more than $30 in cutting discs and a week to cut out a lot of metal in the floorpan.

Someone mentioned using epoxy between the patch and the floor pan. Any other opinions? I don't know, but I'm going to hazard a guess, since the XJ is a uni-body, the floorpan is going to bend and flex, epoxy may be too rigid and it will crack or seperate from the patch or floorpan, then you WON'T have a seal agains the elements and water, it will get between the seams of the patch and start new rust. Might want to consider using a flexible seam sealer to put down between patch and floor pan, I'd find something stronger than simple RTV. Steel Pop Rivets every 5/8" should be more than enough strength (don't forget to seal the pop rivets, they are hollow). NAPA seals Seam Sealer in a caulking tube.

Finally, there are several rust treatments out there to consider. There are lots of knooks and crannies on the underside, some you can't reach. They make a rust neatraulizers, that chemically react with the rust to form a hard salt that will act like paint primer, might want to use that in the knooks and cranies that are tough to get too.

One last one, Chain & Bar Oil, read several articles of people that have used this in the salt belts that rust out the underside of cars. Its the oil used on chainsaw chains, its specfically desinged to fight rust on bare metal exposed to elements (like a chain on a chainsaw) and its very sticky and resist water wash out. People spray/paint/squirt the chain & bar oil all over the bottom of their vehicle before every winter, it'll last a couple of months at least and it fights the rust like you would not believe.

those are some great ideas.

this is still a couple weeks down the road - im planning on removing exhaust system, pulling up carpet.

then wire brushing the "smaller" rust spots really well, spraying them with rust converter.

cutting out holes, grinding/brushing away rust.

then, patching holes with sheet metal, screwed in with short sheet metal screws - with roofing tar or similar sealing in between seems and over and under seams.

then, rustoleum under and over, and finally - YOUR CHAIN SAW OIL IDEA!!

lots of friggin work...but the sheet metal screws should speed up the process i hope.

depending on cost you may want to look at one of the belt fed screw guns for your sheetmetal screws. They're wicked cool, you can just zip along a seam as fast as you can drive scews.

will do! i cant believe how informative this forum is - hopefully, in six months, my XJ will be tip-top...

with at least less serious rust/rot than it had when i got it.

these engines are just invincible, the jeeps are easy to work out, straightforward, reliable vehicles...i think it's worth at least a half-way restoration to hang on to this rig for another 4-5 years!

Give the paint a couple of weeks to thoroughly dry and cure, before applying Chain & Bar Oil over it. Fresh paint may get dissolved or weakened by oil.

You may also wamt to consider using zinc chromate primer to treat the raw sheet metal. It is difficult to find these days because it is considered by the feds to be a health hazard...use a good air filter mask. You can find it at on-line aircraft supply companies like Aircraft Spruce and Specialty. See: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/zinc.php
$6.30 for a large aerosol can.

I used used zinc chromate, followed by black paint, followed by undercoating, when getting after the rust under my son's '95 XJ.

got another question - about sheet metal screws...

they should be driven from the top, obviously, but how can you seal them up? wont water/crud get at them?

i plan on undercoating the whole patches with some sort of rustoleum or inhibitor - but wont the screws be very susceptible to rot?

steel rivets seem more professional for patching for some reason...any thoughts?

im going to keep it going with another question - i've been researching rivet guns, steel rivets, pop-rivets etc... online.

does anyone have a recommendation as to where to get steel rivets and gun? are there specifications i should be concerned with? I obviously want the strongest rivet i can find for steel applications.

Most pop rivet gun will do both steel and aluminum pop rivets, since you'll be using a lot of rivets in fairly thick steel, I'd get an average size/quality pop rivet gun or better.

The steel pop rivets aren't that much more difficult than aluminum.

There are tons of screws on your XJ already, are they rotting out? Screws tend to collect some water and corrode some, but nothing to excessive. Use screws the same size or slightly smaller than your pop rivets, after pop riveting all the holes, remove the screws (drill if the screw is smaller) and replace with a pop rivet.

I've never had problems with leaving the screws in, if they are good screws and sealed well. It seems uneconomical to remove them and pay for pop rivets too, but I guess it's a matter of taste. Just make sure you get blind rivets, not the ones with holes all the way through.