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How do you know if your floorpans are rusted?


Guest Anonymous

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Guest Anonymous

Silly question, but is there anyway to tell how rusted your floorboards are and whether or not they need replacement? The reason I'm asking is because my car appears to be in cherry shape, and there appears to be no rust under the car (not 100% sure about that though) And I've got a pair of aftermarket replacement floorpans that came with the car, and I was thinking of selling them, but I'm not sure if that is such a good idea... What do you guys think?

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Put the car up on jackstands. Get a scratch awl and poke around. Scratch some spots and see if you can get to silver metal.

 

If the floors are really rusty, you'll be able to poke all the way thru in places. The worse spots are near the front and near the back where water can pool in the floorboards (since the windshields almost always leak a little). Also, anyplace where there are 2 or more layers of sheetmetal. These cars are put together with spot welds, not full seam welds. In theory, the undercoating on the outside and sealant on the inside would prevent moisture from getting between the layers. In practice, the water finds its way in and then stays there, allowing the steady catalysis of the metal to rust.

 

If it were me, I'd just hang onto those floor panels. The rational side to that is, you may decide to use them later. The irrational side is that the moment you sell them, you'll discover the rust. Kinda like how I never find that missing tool until the day AFTER I finally break down and buy another one.

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My 2c worth....Go throught he hassle of scraping off all of the undercoating from the floors and chassis rails and the inside under the seats/carpets. I too thought my floors were 'cherry' until I did the removal of the crud and coating, and you've seen what I had to replace. Remember how old these cars are and how damn thin the sheetmetal is. If nothing else, this exercise will give you piece of mind, and drop about 10lbs of 'crap' from the underside of the car.

Tim

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I'll echo Tim. I thought my 240 was fairly pristine (SoCal car). Then, I scraped-off the coating on the interior floor boards and found out it wasn't very 'pristine' at all. cry2.gif The coatings do a great job of hiding the bad news.

 

After that I got under the car and did more scraping. Nothing good found there either. All in all it could be worse, but I would definitly take the time to remove all the coatings inside and out, verify that things are in good shape and then repaint or re-coat.

 

My $.02 ...

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