Replacing Floors and Frame Rails

[m1ghtymaxXx]

Like many S130's mine, is succumbing to corrosion after almost 3 decades. The main culprit was a seam in the passenger side footwell that rusted out allowing water to pour in under the carpet when driving in the rain. She's now in pretty rough shape, but after paying a good chunk to move it from Winnipeg to St. John's Newfoundland with myself, It would be a shame and waste of money to toss the chassis, not to mention I have some history with the car. Anyways I've been amassing a small collection of metal working tools, along with a 110v Lincoln mig. I feel I'm compentent enough with the welder, however the rest of my fab skills are...well untested at this point. Also, all the work will be out of sight, so it doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to works, and here's how it looks on the outside shortly before going into winter storage:

 

Anyways, the floors seem more or less self explanatory, but I've have yet to dig in. My bigger concern are the frame rails though. At first I didn't think it was necessary, despite them being quite dented. Once I pulled up the carpet I fund a nice gaping hole above the frame rail which had been letting water in. This makes sense, as previously, parking with the rear higher than the front resulted in a nice dribble of rust water which made a nice mess of my old apartment parking lot. Here's a rough shot of the hole over the frame rail:

 

Another trouble spot is the rear seat foot well. Here's a pic:

I've only had about 2 hours to tear into the car so far, so I'm not too sure what I'm looking at, but those bolts sticking through at the top of the photo wouldn't be from the rear x-member would they?

 

Anyways, the main purpose of the thread was how to go about repairing frame rails without tweaking the chassis. I've seen people weld cross bars into the door jambs, but I'd prefer not to, just to preserve the paint, and avoid restricting access to the work area. I was thinking about scattering some RV jacks around to hold everything in place before cutting, but I could see that restricting access as well.

 

As for the actual frame rail replacement, I planned to replace the section under the seat with some rectangular tube (size and thickness to be determined). The front where it approaches the x-member seems a kind of daunting, but my plan at this point is just to trace templates from what's there, and piece together the complex shape from the cuttings of sheet metal.

 

Any criticism, advice, experience, photos and links would be extremely appreciated, and with that, I'll leave some photos of what I'm up against.

 

 

PS: This will happening at the same time as an L28ET swap, So engine will be out allowing me access to the rusty frames rails, battery area, and inner fenders.

Edited March 6, 2012 by m1ghtymaxXx

[BluDestiny]

That is almost exactly the two spots that my 2+2 rusted at. I brought them to a local welded and he just put in two plate for $75.

 

Rear pass right at the seam:

Front pass( you can see its hiding behind the fuse block):

 

My frames were in better shape, but that is mostly because it was a cali car its whole life.

 

I really recommend taking a wire wheel to the entire inside of the car. It only took me like 1 solid week. I sprayed some primer then covered with satin black. I thought it came out very sweet.