ha ha. sludge.

 

The floor pans are pretty easy to tackle but I'd have them welded. Contrary to belief they are structural and need to be nice and strong. The easiest way would be to find a donor vehicle and take the entire floor pan out of it. Its easiest to attach the new floor pans at the edge of the door sills just be sure to leave yourself some meat to weld to when removing the old ones. Yours dont look horrible but the decay and weakness often spreads much further out that you can see, the only real way to make sure you get a quality repair out of it is to replace the entire needed sections.

If welding is not an option there are some panel adhesives that are amazing out there, they are just as expensive as having it welded though and you need special tools to apply them correctly.

 

And should you cover this with steel welded in there, etc., you can still top it off with strips of wood stained and sealed. Or incorporate some tie down plates so you can strap down gear and cargo boxes.

Or some 15 inch sub woofers could fit back there.

 

Maybe take a wire brush attachment for your grinder and remove the corrosion down to the base metal to see how advanced it is?

When I was in the Navy, I did a 6 month assignment while at sea as part of a Corrosion Control Team. We had to inspect the planes with magnifying glasses looking for bubbles in the paint. They were circled with a wax pencil, then we came back with air powered rotary grinders using abrasive pads (Scotch Brite by 3M) and ground down to the base metal.

Then we chem treated the aluminum skin with alodyne, primered, sealed with rtv, and spot painted.

If you don't remove the corrosion it will continue to spread. Some of these rust treatments claim to chemically convert it, but I do not have any experience with them. POR15 is supposed to be real good from what I have read.

 

I've been wire brushing (on my grinder) the hell out of it. I removed a lot of flake and the metal is nice and clean..for previously rusted pitted metal. I've got two rust strategies. 1. Treat most areas with the POR15 competition (same scientist half the price rec'd by a guy who deals with a lot of rust on his antique american cars here) and 2. maybe use one of the chemical changers in gaps or hard to reach areas.

I kinda think I should get it welded too. I don't want to.

My current problem is that my mechanic did not mark the position of the propshafts. And the truck rolled a little (don't ask). What do I do about this?

 

I can't get a donor vehicle or a close to decent price on a new or used part shipped. I need to patch or fabricate. maybe I should just treat the hell out of the floor and then have a piece of metal cut the exact size..maybe even the diamond plate...Then weld that in on top. But no wood thanks..id weld in small flat steel tubing if i think i need stops...current plan is to herculiner whatever is there. New plate floor would insure structural issue and cover all the visible damage of course. Seats and belts planning might be annoying but we could deal. I'm a little worried about welding on top of gas tank, pump, lines, etc.

 

I do not see a problem with doing it that way. You could either cut out small openings to be able to get to the existing seat and seat belt captive fasteners or even mount new nut plates in the new floor matching the existing locations. The old ones are probably pretty well rusted as well.

New nut plates could be welded or riveted in place.

As far as indexing the d/s, there are four possible orientations as there are four bolts so the drive shaft may match the original (that is the balanced position) or be 90, 180, or 270 degreees off.

There is a tab welded on the side of the shaft for balance. If you get it wrong, you will have some vibration, drop it and try another position. One out of four chance of getting it right.

 

Panel adhesives? How would that work. Same basic idea maybe..cut plate to size..stick to floor? There are a lot of peaks and valleys.

Is there anyway I could use aluminum...I got a guy with a serious aluminum forming machine.

Guessing, I would think I could get a new steel panel floor made and welded for $300. Maybe $200.

 

Well after my mechanic friend allowed the truck to roll into the neighbors car while we were out and then lost the orientation of both prop shafts I hope he gets it on the 4th try.

Yeah. I know.

 

re: Should I do all this rust repair myself

It's about time SWMBO started helping out..... you can tell her I said so, just be out of reach...