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Help me my floors are shot

I think for around 400.00 you can replace the whole pan front to back. But you'll need to weld. For the cost of drill bits, and rivets I could have bought a nice little wire feed. And if your going to rivet. putting experiance from the marine repair and refinishing field, place them @ 5/8" apart. Boats and planes have thousands of rivets why not my jeep. I'll let you know if it fly's and floats.
 
Thanks Raypla
I need to do my floors also.
If we all searched we would not have much to talk about, would we?
 
Heya, hotroddenal,

You've asked about my freebie tires, and you have a rusted out roof and holes in the floor... Before you put too much into the heep you have, there may be an alternative:

Down here in south Florida, there are often 88-94 Cherokees for sale cheep. I just passed on an offer of a 4-door '91 for 500 bucks (not enough parts salvageable for me, for the time/money). All it needed was some wiring harness/steering column TLC to run fine. For the time and effort (and cash) you will put in on your current heep just to get it weathertight again, you may want to keep an eye out and save up a little dough - then buy one in better condition to start out from.

I'm not trying to talk you out of your current heep, just food for thought.

Oh, BTW - I bought a complete floor pan (both sides front to back seat) for around $230 plus shipping from a dealer out in Cali last year.
 
Nixt said:
Oh, BTW - I bought a complete floor pan (both sides front to back seat) for around $230 plus shipping from a dealer out in Cali last year.
Plus its lots and lots of work to do it yourself. As well as the cost of welding materials, and thats assuming your borrowing a welder.

What would a Professional Charge to replace the floor? I'm taking a wild a$$ guess, but I say, $1500 at least.

I've got 6 holes in my floor plan, I've just finished stipping out the interior, I'll be fashioning and fitting the patches this weekend. Its a lot of work, you have to really enjoy doing this, for it to be worth it.

BTW, I've been cleaning up the interior pieces as I remove them. The prevous owner must have believed that proper vehicle maintenance is ONLY hosing down the body and changing the oil. The inerior was stained and stunk of mildew something aweful. The stuff we found under the seats, eww, goo, dog hair, broken glass?

The door jambs literally have an inch of gunk piled up on them, I don't think the guy ever took a sponge to the body, or even tried to do anything but rinse the mud off the body. The engine compartment was covered in dirt and dust, it just took a hose to clean it off.

We did find a gold ear ring, $2.21 in change and a dollar bill, so we are recovering some costs.

So far I've washed the seats covers (in the washing machine), sprayed them with Scotch Guard. Painted the rusted seat frames with Rustoleum. Washed the rear carpet, the front carpet is next.

My custom mix of 2 parts Simple Green, 2 parts Laudry Detergeant and 1 part Color Safe Oxiclean Bleach sprayed on both sides, scrubbed in with a brush on the carpet side, with OXiclean Powder sprinkled on the stains. Then hosed off with the highest pressure stream you can get with a hose, until all soap and dirt stops flowing out of the carpet worked very well, the carpet almost looks new. It takes about 2 days layed out next to the de-humidifier to dry out the padding/sound deadening side of the carpet.
 
Rick Anderson said:
So far I've washed the seats covers (in the washing machine), sprayed them with Scotch Guard. Painted the rusted seat frames with Rustoleum. Washed the rear carpet, the front carpet is next.

How did you get the seat covers off? I looked at my front seats and couldn't see any zippers. The rear seat backrest has the zipper, but that's the only one I could find.

-Robert
 
Someone say holey floors, batman?


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Yes that is my driveway you can see.
 
montanaman said:
How did you get the seat covers off? I looked at my front seats and couldn't see any zippers. The rear seat backrest has the zipper, but that's the only one I could find.
Well XJ cames with different seat covers, like most vehicles, so my experience may be different than yours. BUT, in most cases, the seat covers had to be put on, so they have to be able to come off.

The front seats you have to pull out of the car. Then unbolt the seat back from the seat bottom. Once apart, you can flip over the seat bottom and see underneath how it has a long flexible clip that clips unto a rail on the frame.

As well, there are several little metal ring seat clips, that poke through the cloth and wrap around a rail to secure the cover to the frame or cushion, the cushions have rails formed into the foam. I stick a needle nose plier into the ring and pull the grips apart, expanding the tip of the needle nose and opening the ring.

The seat back, has a zipper on the bottom. The zipper extends past the seatcover seam and is folded up and tucked into the seam. Unzip the bottom of the seat cover and start to pull it up, you'll see more of the metal rings clips that you'll have to bend open and take off.

Through them into the wash, on gentle, and give them 2 days to dry, one inside out and the other outside out. Put them back together as they came apart, use the needle nose pliers to thread the metal circle clip back in place, then bend the metal circle clips back into an overlapping circle to secure the seatcovers to the rails in the frame and cushion.

You might want to take the opportunity to clean off the rust from the seat frames and paint if with some rustoleum before re-assembly.

The rear seat, the seat back has to be unbolted and removed to unzip and remove the cover, the seat cushion has velcro on it, so you just have to peel the seat cover off the velcro on the cushion.

The seat bottom, has to be removed from the car as well. Flip it over and you'll see 6 push in plastic screws that hold the cover to the seat frame, just pop them out and peel the seat cover off. Caution, you'll likely break the plastic push-in screws and they are an odd size, I could not find a similiar sized replacement at the local auto store or hardware store. I had to get the closest size and then trim them with a knife, I litterally had to shave down the ribs on the side of the screw.
 
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hotroddenal said:
My floors are not that bad but getting close to it and I dont think going air born by, "Accident", helped any either.


Take a close look at the bottom picture. That is the unibody rail that is rotted, and the spring mount is rotted also. I knew my floors were bad, but I didn't realize how much other damage there was until I started cleaning things out. Until I got down this far, I was going to weld in some 16 gauge sheet metal from Home Despot to repair the floor. Now I have a parts Jeep, and an excuse to build a new one.
 
w_howey said:
Take a close look at the bottom picture. That is the unibody rail that is rotted, and the spring mount is rotted also. I knew my floors were bad, but I didn't realize how much other damage there was until I started cleaning things out. Until I got down this far, I was going to weld in some 16 gauge sheet metal from Home Despot to repair the floor. Now I have a parts Jeep, and an excuse to build a new one.

wow...that is bad. i didn;t even notice the "framerail" until you mentioned it.
 
metal circle clip
thats the best i have heard them called , but in the auto interior world there call hog rings , if there really rusted up, just cut them in too, and look around your area for a auto interior shop and see if they will sell you a hand full of them, most will if there nice. We normally use what they call hog ring pliers which hook around the bent end of the rings to press them close but you can use a set of normal pliers to close them. Everthing else he siad is spot on for washing the interior. Some times we use a clean 33 gallon wash can and let them soak in that a while then scrub with a brush. hang them up and hose off till the water is clean. If any has any Questions about interiors just pm and i'll answer as soon as i can, my family has been in the auto interior business going on close to 50 years now so theres not much we have not seen or made or run into. good luck
 
JMH said:
... in the auto interior world there call hog rings , .... We normally use what they call hog ring pliers which hook around the bent end of the rings to press them close but you can use a set of normal pliers to close them.... Everthing else he siad is spot on for washing the interior. Some times we use a clean 33 gallon wash can and let them soak in that a while then scrub with a brush.
I've seen pictures of Hog Ring Pliers when I did research about restoring my '69 Charger (unfortunately, thats all I've done in restoring it, research).

I was thinking about a Special Tool while pulling the seat covers, cause regular pliers and needle nose pliers will work, BUT its very ham fisted and time consuming, as well, you'll probably pinch your fingers a couple of times. There are only about a dozen and a half hog rings that secure the seats. If you can find a pair of Hog Ring Pliers for a couple of bucks, it would be worth it, but you can get by regular pliers and needle noses, its not worth spending lots of money for just a couple of hog rings.

I bought a gallon of Simple Green at my local Home Building Supply Store. If you read the literature on the side of the bottle, its says you can mix it 50/50 with laundry detergeant to increase the cleaning power of the detergeant and improve grease/oil spot removal in the clothing. I took that to mean, that it works great in combination with laundry detergeant, but can't replace it. So to clean my carpets and upholstery, I used a mix of 2 parts Liquid Laundry Detergeant, 2 parts Simple Green and 1 part Color Safe Liquid Bleach (NO Chlorine Bleach, that will destroy colors). The Color Safe Bleach may be unneccessary, but its $2.50 a bottle, I figured it can't hurt. As well, I spent a couple of bucks on a can of OXICLEAN and sprinkled it on the bad stains and scrubbed it in on with a stiff brush.
 
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