SBlackfoot

My GTA recently failed it's safety for obvious reasons. Naturally I need to replace these areas with new steel. Does the floor need to be welded on a unibody car or is it enough to just rivet the new parts in and POR-15 over the whole thing? Any advise? Or should I just push the damn thing into the lake? There's no way it'd ever float with floors like this...

Driver's side:

Kickpanel closeup:

Passenger side:

Right rear footwell:

Left rear footwell:

Spectre

you could get a replacement floor.. Im pretty sure it has to be welded in tho.

Angelis83LT

yea.. the floor pan you need to weld in. it will make a nice weather tight seal and then you can por 15 the whole thing.. You should be able to find what you need from year one.. If i had my catalog for them i would give you the part numbers.. but i am lazy tonight and it is out in my garage lol don't feel like the 175ft walk

SBlackfoot

I'm thinking about using 304 stainless steel from work to fab up some replacement sections. I don't really need the whole pan and they're not cheap (over $400 Canadian a side), and I'm not holding my breath on finding a good donor at the yard. I forgot to ask, is it necessary to brace up the unibody before hacking into the floor? I don't have SFCs (yet). I might just rivet the sections into place and go over the seams later (a couple of weeks or so) once I get my hands on a lil MIG welder. Sound reasonable?

Angelis83LT

I suppose you could do it and yes you should brace the frame up somehow to maintian it's striaghtness because if you hack out all that floor it could weaken it just nough to twist when you put the new panel in. If i could remember where i found the floor pans i was looking at i found a place that had a full floor pan from front to the rear area inder the rear seats and covered both driver's and passenger's side for only $300. I really should find that link again.

Also.. when you cute the metal out, exactly how are you going to weld it (is in what type of weld?)

KagA152

iTrader: (5)

my car looked the same way, right now its just big gaping holes, i got some new metal from a member on here cutting up a car for $20! make a post in the classifieds, i had few responses

jimp2001

I need floor pans as well, if anyone can find some good prices, post them here!

Wind Charger

It would be a shame to push your car into a lake. They didnt make many 90 GTAs.

SBlackfoot

Just under 300 for Canada that year if memory serves. There can't be many left if they all look like this by now.

So if I were to brace up the body before cutting any large holes, how exactly would I do that? I was hoping to get away with just cutting and replacing only one section at a time.

Maybe I can try to get my hands on a set of bolt-on SFCs before I start...

jimp2001

thats what my plan is too, bolt on the sub-frame connectors and start cutting with the plasma torch

Angelis83LT

I got have a set of sfc's that do the x mounts as well as theregualr sfc. going to install those before i do any floor work. and cut holes in the gas tank area....

trigger GTA

check that price i thought it was 400 for both sides

after seeing your floor it got a fire under my *** and i cut mine out

83_Camaro_83

Is any one else thinking alternative power......

Flintstones

SBlackfoot

CrossCanada has them listed for around $380 per side.

Hey great, when you're done practicing on yours....

Angelis83LT

that works out well with nothing in the car at all lol.. since there is no wieght really pulling it down. I am glad i do not live in canada.. things are even more expensive there (if you are a resident there). The floor pans here (for the catalogs i have) are $225.99 per side.

If you want the part number for this price it is through year one. and the part numbers are FP92RH, and FP92LH.

Also another place to check for rust like that is the trunk well. and if anyone needs to get one of those year one also has them. CR139 -> $159.99

After that the next big thing is the rear quarter panels and they have those too. Either the skins or the whole rear quarter panel. The Quarter panel skins are $78 a side and the full quarter panel is $411 a side

That pretty much covers all the areas where the most rust can be found.. other than the bottom of the doors

SBlackfoot

Wow this is more than I had bargained for. So far on the driver's side I have no floor under the driver's feet, no floor under the driver's rear passenger's feet, and a small hole right under the driver's seat. Y'know those sticky rubber pads over the drip holes? Both on the driver's side were totally rotted underneath. They're a pain in the *** to scrape off by the way, any tips? In the back I kept finding little pinholes that crumbled to the touch. Who would've thought that I'd see both the front subframe and the rear suspension mount at the same time from inside the car! Yikes!

At this point the front passenger floor is looking scarier and scarier. How in the hell am I supposed to bend something to fit that?!? The driver's side I think I can handle (and will finish before hacking up the passenger side), but the floor over there... Whoo boy I'm screwed. I guess making the cardboard template before cutting the floor would be a good idea.

The current plan is to make cardboard templates of the patch panels, trace them to the stainless steel, cut it out, bend it, use POR-patch to glue them in place, and use sheet-metal screws to join it all together. I might need to make screw holes in the stainless panels on the laser at work if I can't drill it. The main reason for the cardboard is so that I can flip it over to make the patch for the other rear footwell (likely just as bad as the driver's side once the grinder hits it).

Any words of wisdom?

87LG4FORMULA

I'm in the middle of this on my new daily driver, just go slow and remember how much you enjoy driving your car when you hit spots that are depressing I am fabbing everthing in cardboard, then 20gauge, then weld when possible, then tar. Helps to have a buddy too, cuz I can't weld

EmoDork138

I've done bad floor jobs on two thridgens so far - and thus far I've advoided buying pricey replacement floors and looking at your pics i think you can do the same


You start with grinder in hand and take all metal not worth its worth off your floor. Be carefull when you approach the tunnel for the tranny because its pretty *tough to bend sheetmetal to conform to your tranney cover.

After its all grinded out, take some measurements, and some rough angels and bend until you get them to fit. I didn't weld, but rather riveted the hand made replacements to what good metal you can find. After you have it set in w/ a few rivets.. fiberglass away. Glass everything.. go up around that tranny tunnel.. and hell, anywhere you feel more support would be great.

Get under your car.. clean up strangely metal down there and paint and protect that exposed metal.


I did it twice.. 150% solid. I had the first car for 3 years.. no probelms.. and my current GTA had worse floors.. and its holding up fine. Total cost = 23 dollars for all fiberglass and material. Thankyou work for the metal and benders!

definatly.. unless you have rust in extream areas that you warrant a new replacement floor.. do it this way. Just a little work.. and then you can take that 400 bucks for a new floor, and who knows - new tires right?

rock on.

Yossarian14

I agree completely with what Emo said before but will add a little bit. For one if you have a grinder, grab a large wire brush for it. Go around and any metal thats even close to rusty you might as well cut it out, I usually take a dental probe and if I can push even that tiny tip through the metal cut it out. This and/or just go through your entire floor with a wire wheel over the troubles areas, dont leave a spot unchecked. Honestly metal is not that hard to bend, make sure you look at some of the pics in the link below I also had to recreate my floor pans and also many other things to my suprise when I began to chase rust and body filler all the way through the car, even to the pillar which I had to recreate. I would probably weld these pieces in though if you have the option. http://www.cardomain.com/ride/756169/2[IMG]

Yossarian14

Ah sorry forgot to post the pict and it wont let me edit one in.

SBlackfoot

Thanks for the advise guys. I've already dived headfirst into this project. The driver's floor is now one big piece of 316 stainless steel, with several smaller patches over the kickpanel/toeboard area, as is the driver's side rear footwell (although slightly shallower than stock). I creatively cut/bent the .030" sheets and sheet-metal screwed them into place with a layer of POR-Patch underneath, around the openings. The driver's side is done, and I've started grinding out the rear footwell on the passenger side. This one is nastier than I thought, the rusted metal (on the underside) goes up and over that hump where the rear seat bolts down. I'd hate to have to cut that out too...

That passenger side front footwell looks damn scary. I think I can do it with two large patches though. At least the 316 won't rust. I figure I'll replace everything I can, undercoat the hell out of the undercarriage (maybe POR-15 instead, but that's such a big job) and the interior floorboards.

I'm so lucky the tranny tunnel is practically mint. Three weeks until we move, I really need to get this thing done before then (and I haven't started packing yet).

Dizturbed One

WELD THOSE PANELS IN!!!

Can't believe no one has said anything...

Glue and Screws are almost as dangerous as a hole, and if there is any flex put to the body at all (who would've thought a unibody might flex ) those screw holes will elongate and be worthless very quickly.

You're not adding much integral rigidity with glue and screws.

You NEED to weld those panels in. I don't even really see it as an option.

SBlackfoot

Maybe because it's often not a viable option.

I can only do the best I can with what I have. No welder and a small shared (with a neighbor) garage to work in, and moving in two weeks, my options are limited. Stainless steel, POR-Patch, sheet metal screws, and fibreglass (probably, I'll look into it tomorrow) are about my only option. Hell I can't see it being any weaker than rusted out panels so I REALLY doubt she'll be any worse off. Plus if I do use this as an excuse to finally get a set of SFCs then a lot of stress will be taken off of the floorpan.

At any rate, the patch panels are glued and screwed into place, and I'm now at the point where I'm thinking about fibreglassing over all of the seams. How long does fibreglass take to cure? I'm dying to start putting this bloody thing back together. I'm thinking a 5-6" strip over all of the seams should help quite a bit. Sound adequate?

HalfInchWrench

Glass will dry in about half an hour or so. If I were you I wouldn't glass them now. I'd leave it and then weld the panels later when you get the time. Wouldn't be much effort to gut the interior again later so you could weld the floor back together.

I'm in the same boat with my 85 Z. Not sure if I should repair the floor or strip the car and buy a rolling chasis to put everything on. Damit I hate rust.

wipeout

Looking at doing the same to my 86. Might of had found a donor car. Gonna go check it out. If its good gonna completely cut out the entire floor front to back.

You should see under my rear seat. Huge hole. and the rear foot well isnt even attached to the car anymore.

305q_ta86

iTrader: (1)

You said something about welding 304 stainless steel from work in? You shouldnt try to weld 304 SS to the floor. In fact, you shouldnt try to weld two different metals together at all. If you do, you can create a galvanic cell out of it and the patched areas will rust on you before you can say 'oops.' It gets even worse if you use the wrong type of rod/wire to weld it, because then the welds themselves can become the anode and.. yeah.

Tobias05

my car has its fair share of rust, so I'm gonna tip my hat to those of you that have the talent, and the patience, to wage war on that savage beast we call rust. I'll check back to see how it turns out.

LT1FUN

I had the same problem you did a few month's back and since I was planning on driving the car through the winter, I had to get the floors fixed before the snow came down.

You might want to look at this thread I started at the time. Pretty informative and will show you some before and after pictures of the floor pans. You don't have to replace the whole floor unless it's all rotted. You can get away with fixing only the areas that need to be fixed. You'll save a lot of money that way.

Check out this thread here for more information.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...loor-pans.html

The name of the place is "AutoWeld" - complete undercarriage rust repair & fabrication

The name of the guy who runs it (he works alone) is "John"

You can find the place here:

325 Nantucket BLVD. #25, (Just off Kennedy Rd)
Scarborough, Ontario
M1P 4V5

His phone number is 416-288-6866

I'm going to be going back to him since I recently found some rust holes on the drivers side inner wheel well. I'll have to get that repaireed before I apply some POR-15.

He does excellent work.

joshk879

He will be fine as long as the right weld wire is used. I work at a place that does nothing but stainless steel work with dis-similar metals.

SBlackfoot

Check the dates guys...

I wound up cutting out the really rotten areas and using a bead of POR-Patch and sheet metal screws to secure large sections of 304SS in place, then fibreglassed over the interior seams. Not the ideal solution but it was the best I could do at the time. At least the new sections won't rust out on me.

Hopefully this summer I'll POR-15 the undercarriage at last. I found a supplier of the stuff locally so if I run out I won't be totally screwed. That should buy the ol 'bird a few more years at least.

wipeout

You guys havent seen a rusty floor until youve seen mine. Im gonna post some pics soon. Your gonna roll on the floor. Man its bad.

Your gonna think im crazy thinking im gonna fix this thing.

aaron7

iTrader: (7)

My car looked the same there. You would probably be surprised as to where else it is rotten. Check the strut towers in the front, behind the taillights, rear wheel houses... etc. Then figure if you want to bother fixing it. I gave up on my Iroc and parted it out due to rust.

LT1guy

iTrader: (1)

If you don't have access to a welder now, at least use Fusor panel bonding adhesive before screwing the panels in. Unlike fiberglass, its a permament repair and you could always go back and weld up the seams later. It will be a lot stronger than anything short of welding.