Can of Worms...

stevenr

stevenr

Well-known member
Apr 19, 2004
1,454
0
51
Cleveland, TN
web.mac.com
So this project started out as a simple job; replace the driver's side fuse box. That went well and took roughly 15 minutes start to finish. I could have hung up my hat and said to myself "job well done. We now have all electrical functions working properly again." That would have been great and I could have enjoyed the rest of my day.

But no.

15 minutes was clearly not enough time to fix the rover, so I went and fixed it some more.

Now it looks like this:



Actually it looks worse than that. There are even more bits removed.

I knew my truck had been taking in water for some time and I had been putting off the inevitable in hopes that my ignorance would give me bliss, but upon removing carpeting and padding I came accross what every Land Rover owner fears... RUST :ack:

The rear floorboard is in perfect shape as you may have noticed in the photo above. However, it appears that my muffler is a bit too close to the body and now I know why "it smells like something is burning".



The driver's floor has some descent surface rust, but nothing all the way through and is easily fixable. I have poked and prodded and it is still very solid in the rough looking areas.



The passenger side was not so good. I scraped away all the top rust and made some pretty nice sized holes. I am pretty bummed about this, but again, I did half expect it.



I then pulled all of the door edge/trim off and when I got to the rear driver's side I pulled some truck off with it. I was more upset about this rust than the floor boards.







I do not own a welder nor do I know how to weld very well, so now the truck must sit in this state until I can find someone local to me to take my truck to. I can refit the driver's seat and seatbelt, hook the parking brake back up and drive it to someone for the repair work.

So this is how she sits.. for now.



This is not really tech and I'm not really looking for solutions, just wanted to share.

Once the repair work is done I will bedline the floor pan (rear was done years ago and holding up great), dynamat then reinstall carpeting.
 
lunchbox

lunchbox

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
2,139
166
50
St Louis, MO
Shit...mine was 10 times worse than that. I posted a few pics in general. You could see through both front floors, both sills were rotted, and the rear wheel arches were gone. I'm almost done now after three weeks of fun.
 
stevenr

stevenr

Well-known member
Apr 19, 2004
1,454
0
51
Cleveland, TN
web.mac.com
lunchbox said:
Shit...mine was 10 times worse than that. I posted a few pics in general. You could see through both front floors, both sills were rotted, and the rear wheel arches were gone. I'm almost done now after three weeks of fun.
Click to expand...

SHE-ITE! I guess I should feel pretty good about mine I guess. I have not pulled the rock sliders off yet. I'm sure they are bad too.
 
stevenr

stevenr

Well-known member
Apr 19, 2004
1,454
0
51
Cleveland, TN
web.mac.com
Made some progress of the past couple weeks...

Grinded and wire wheeled and cut out all the rust areas that were important to putting the interior back together.

This is passenger rear wheel well. The wheel well was gone!



Here is rear passenger floorboard area. I didn't even know this was bad at first inspection, but you can see how much I had to cut out to get to good metal:



Obviously the worst hole is here in the passenger front footwell. Had to cut a lot out.



After all the cutting and grinding everything got cleaned with Acetone:



After cleaning, I treated with Ospho. It's quite a good rust converter.



The Driver's rear wheel arch door trim area is a trouble spot. I removed all loose rust and scaling wire wheel cleaned as much as I could then just treated with Ospho. I may go back and revisit this winter, but can work on this with my interior back together.



 
stevenr

stevenr

Well-known member
Apr 19, 2004
1,454
0
51
Cleveland, TN
web.mac.com
With some help from Todd Klueger (Toddco), I got some new metal welded in and some holes filled...

This is the passenger rear wheel well area all patched up:



Passenger rear floorboard:



The big patch of the passenger floorboard:



This is the small hole in the rear driver's side wheel well:



After all the patchwork, one more time cleaning and pretreating, then a rust inhibiting and encapsulating paint. I use Eastwood products.. I know a lot of guys swear by POR15, but I think the Rust Encapsulator paint is superior.



Next on the list is to undercoat over the paint on the bottom of the truck and herculine the interior. Looking into Dynomat or knockoff brand sound deadening after Herculiner.
 
scottsdalerrc

scottsdalerrc

Well-known member
May 21, 2009
1,025
1
central pa
nicely done...mine too was far worse. both front floorpans i could almost put both legs thru. rear arches were rough. all patched now though. not as nicely as yours but who cares...i dont DD it and it passes insp.
 
latarheel

latarheel

Well-known member
Oct 10, 2011
183
4
AZ
Steven,

for small footwell rust spots , can these be done from underneath or do you have to pull everything up and patch from inside?
 
stevenr

stevenr

Well-known member
Apr 19, 2004
1,454
0
51
Cleveland, TN
web.mac.com
latarheel said:
Steven,

for small footwell rust spots , can these be done from underneath or do you have to pull everything up and patch from inside?
Click to expand...

2 Things...

1) visibly small footwell rust spots tends to be much larger when you start removing the scaling. That is how my passenger area was perceived, and you say how big it ended up being.

2) If welding is involved (likely), you would end up burning padding, carpeting, possibly wiring.

So, it's best to pull up carpeting from the inside. You can remove a minimal amount of interior pieces to target one area. I knew that I was going to treat the entire floor, so I removed it all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom