I'm finally taking the carpet up on my 87. Only had time to check the passenger side tonight, and this is what i found.

 

Compared to a lot of other peoples cars I've seen on here, this is pretty good. Only one bad spot on the back (white circle in first pic). Unfortunately, while taking the seat out, i broke one of the seat mounting studs. (yellow circle).

Whats the best way to replace the broken stud?

Ive ground out a lot of the rust in that spot on the rear pass floor using a dremel wire brush and a grinding disk. I'm going to need to go and pick up a bigger wire brush tomorrow to get rid of the rest... most of the stuff seemed to be layered crusty rust.

something tells me what i didn't find over here, im going to find on the driver side.

Ive also heard quite a bit about POR-15. Is that stuff mail-order only, or has anyone found it in stores anywhere? If i use it, is it a safe practice to just grind out whatever rust I can get out, clean the area, and paint some of this stuff in (as long as the metal isn't too thin, or worse)?

Thanks guys.

 

I'm also curious what the best course of action is when i find worse under the drivers side. I know i have a hole on one of the sides (i can poke my finger in a hole and feel carpet). I pretty much broke, and don't have a lot of time on my hands.

is it best to just clean it up and primer, or leave it alone till it can be tackled properly?

 

This morning i went back out and started grinding away at more of the rust. At a certain point i probably should have realized i was doing something wrong when i hit pockets of the floor-pan that where kind of hollow.

I didn't realize the floorpan was that thin, and what i was seeing at the bottom of the rusty spot was a part of the frame. That didn't occur to me till i was grinding away flaky rust until i saw a bit of light between the frame and the floor pan.

At that point i stopped and primered the crap out of all the raw metal i had exposed. I figured i could always get the primer off and do things proper at a later date, and hopefully it wont get any worse.

I thought the t-tops leaking was the cause of it, but the closer i got to the tar-papered metal plug thing (technical name) the worse it got.




I really cant wait to lift the drivers side and see what i find (insert sarcasm).

 

Your car is pretty soild man and if you can you might just be able to find a parts car somewhere with the floor pieces you need to fix yours and weld them in. The driver area is always the worst of it and I mean always.

The metal plug thing is a drain plug LOL

Dont worry the driver side might be the worst but the car is way better then alot out there

 

Thanks.

I'll post pictures of the drivers side when i get the seat out. Probably wont be till this weekend.

 

I found the original factory build sheet under my driver seat carpet

 

Today I finally found the time to get the drivers side seat out. One of the bolts was so rounded nothing i had would do the job. I found a set of easy-out type sockets that worked on getting that bolt off like a dream! worth the $18 bucks for the kit.

Anyways, the carpet was tougher to get up. The padding felt like it was glued down in most parts, especially under the pedals. I didn't get all of it up off the floor, just what i could easily lift to check out what was going on and clean it.

Holy Hell, the passenger floor had more bumps on it than my face did in high-school!

under the seat wasn't that bad, and down by the drivers floor, two holes.

 

I tried to clean up quite a bit of the rust. After cleaning the loose stuff up, it almost looks like the metal underneath is white...

I primered up the raw metal until i can take care of this propper.

Jon

 

That last pic is of the driver side rear foot area? if so thats above the torque box and should be repaired for sure as the floor looks like it rotted away.

 

The part that's circled is the worst of it. Well, besides the holes by the driver foot area.

By the pictures of "torque box" I'm seeing online, the rust in both rear foot wells is above the torque box on both sides.

I'm working on a limited budget of both time and money (in other words, I'm broke). before I go any further with the floor resto, should I have some sub-frames put in?

is there any problem driving it like this? I don't "womp on it".

 

Why is it always the drivers side that's worse? the passenger side of my car (t-tops) leaks far worse than the driver side.

Any tips on removing a broken stud for the seats? as mentioned earlier, I broke one of the passenger side studs off getting the seat out a few weeks ago.