The floor in the 73 duster we used for.
Can you place carpet over rusted floorpan.
On any repairs that require welding cover all the glass on the car and on any other cars in the workshop where you re working.
Even an otherwise rust free car will often have some swiss cheesing of the floors 40 years of wet shoes and the occasional bust ed heater core take a toll.
This patches the holes and adds a strong layer over the floor pan which can actually improve the strength of the entire floor pan.
Sometimes you can get away with minimal patch work but far too often the pans are completely wasted.
On the face of it installing new carpet over the old carpet does have some advantages.
Weld spatter travels far and will bury itself into the surface of any glass it hits you can get it off with an acrylic scraper but the glass will be permanently pitted.
By madcat x1 len gates in the uk provided this important caution.
You can use a cut off wheel or reciprocating saw to cut the floorpan.
Also if the rust started from the inside leaky t tops window seals etc fix that or it will just.
We set out to show the different ways you can fix a floor using this 1960 pontiac catalina where severe rust and rot had damaged its floorpans and trunk floor.
And if the existing carpet was glued down not tacked it can be a huge time saver to lay the new carpet over the old.
We used a hypertherm powermax45 xp plasma system.
Remove any rust from the bottom of the floor pan using a power sander and 40 grit sandpaper.
If necessary to break the adhesion bond between the carpet and floor pan.
It saves on the cost and labor of pulling up and disposing of the existing carpet keeping carpet waste materials out of the landfill.
I would love to see pics of your progress and all the best with your project too.
Then you want to put in a patch.
A better method is to weld in a patch remember to paint that area on the outside under of the car so that it doesn t rust over again.
Floor pan rust treatment process in pictures.
Riveting in a patch sealed with rtv will work if you re feeling cheap.
Carpet in place.
Just removing carpet along can take a quarter sized holes and turn it in to a dollar sized cavity.
If you have built an older car chances are you have had to deal with rusty floor pans.
Wear a dust mask and eye protection.