Floor pan rust - need to replace or patch? 56k beware

[Zeus]

I have had the luxary of stripping my interior over the last week. I have known about a little bit of rust in the floor for a while and really wanted to tackle it sooner rather than later. Passenger side is worse than drivers side by far. I am pretty sure the passenger needs to just be replaced while the driver I think I can fix.

Just wanting to get an opinion from some guys with more experience and have gone through this before.

Passenger behind seat

Passenger front

driver front

driver rear

and on a side note, is this rippling common? It looks to me like it has been compressed from a wreck or something but this is the only sign of damge anywhere.

thanks

[AChev]

Zeus,

I am going through the same thing you are right now, I have been readig all that I can on the topic on these boards.

By the looks of the drivers side it definately looks repairable, by the photos it appears to be fairly strong, from my opinion all it will need is to have the rust taken care off, looks feasible

On the other note the passenger side is getting the swiss cheese look, I am sorry, good luck with the replacement

[MikeW]

I agree that the driver's side looks quite good. You should be able to just remove the minimal rust and coat with POR-15.

The picture of the passenger side behind the seat shows a lot of rust right above the frame rail (which is below the lengthwise hump). You might be looking at a new frame rail to go with that new floor pan.

[new_2_z]

dude get some por15 for that driver side. you could do some spot welding which would make it alot stronger. (iv heard great things about taht por15 so im going to try it out on a little spot to see how it works, im getting my shipment in sat.)im going to finish my floors this weekend. you can get some 18 guage sheet for taht spot welding or if u wanted to replace everything but i dont see a need. i also bought this rust converter stuff that changes rust into primer which is kinda cool. of course srub the hell out of spots before u put this on. your pans look 100% better than mine. I can honstly say that my passanger side is swiss cheese. but its ok im getting a kick in doing this stuff to my car. iv done all my work during the holidays and i got my car on december 11 so been working on my car non stop. But im hopeing by the end of next week my car will be cancer free.

[este]

wow... im new here and new to these cars but the rust in the passenger side is fairly bad, if you need to reinforce your rails there is a guy that makes covers and reinforcements for the frame rails.

www.maddogparts.com

They are fairly inexpensive and if you know how to weld then it should be a really easy install.

Check them out, I have some bad rust spots myself and my frame rails will need to be replaced too.

[Zeus]

este, welcome

your link doesnt seem to be working. i believe that you are trying to post a link to the site that sells theie rails on ebay. i have always wondered about those. they seem to just weld over the existing bad rails which doesnt seem like a good idea to me.....anyone else care to chime in?

i have treated the rust with an acid base rust treater....i am going to be trying por-15 for the 1st time on that passenger floor. any help on using the stuff would be appreciated. does anyone know how much work i can expect out of the por starter kit?

thanks

[Bambikiller240]

The link should have been http://www.baddogparts.com/, but if you are buying floorpan and rail parts, I'd buy from Charlie Osborn at http://www.datsunzparts.com/ since he has a floor replacement system that is generally considered by many to be the best available. ( http://www.datsunzparts.com/Summary.htm )

Everyone has an opinion, this one is mine.

[Bambikiller240]

As for advice on using POR15, follow their directions/instructions EXACTLY. You should receive complete directions/instructions with your order, or you can find the info on both the manufacturer's AND distributor's websites, or you can call either of them with any last minute questions. They will be glad to help.

[este]

yeh... from what i have read on here the parts are not the best! this is simply what I found on the net and since Im a Z newbie please disregard

BTW: Im also having a bad rust problem any idea what I can do to stop the problem before it gets worse?

thanks!

Esteban

[Zeus]

carl, i have seen a set of the zedd findings pans and they do look to be of high quality. i am going to get under the car once the weather shapes up a bit here in cali. more than likely, i am going to just por-15 the pans and replace the frame rails with the zedd findings ones.

[Bambikiller240]

POR the swiss cheese (passenger-side) floor pan??? Not sure that is a good idea given the pictures of it.

[Zeus]

Carl, you think that the passenger side is beyond a POR-15 fix? There are a few really bad spots but there seems to me that there is enough structual metal left to do a POR-15 fix. This is just what I was thinking, I have heard such great things baout the stuff, maybe I am thinking 'too' highly of it?

thanks