Ladies and Gentlemen, this noob is finally going after the rust hole/s on the floor of his poor E30. I found these spots this last spring when I removed the carpet, and the plan was to ignore them until they went away. Well they haven't gone away, so time for plan B.
I that more than likely the "proper" way to do this is to take it to a shop, and have them cut everything out and weld in a new floor piece. Sadly, I don't have a few hundred to throw at the track rat right now. And quite frankly, I don't really care that there is a hole in the floor. What I do care about is stopping the rust from spreading, and making sure it isn't structural.
So without further ado, here are the pictures I took today as I finally started to tackle it. The location is just behind the passengers seat. The bolt hole in the pictures is the rear right bolt hole for the seat.
The big ugly. Sander left in picture to help with scale.
Not quite holes yet. But I believe the metal is toast here. Haven't ripped away the underside yet.
The underside after the coating has been pealed back some.
Turns out my car might be an autobot...
After a wirebrush on drill has been taken to it. Local small town hardware store didn't have a wire brush for the angle grinder.
Top side after some more sanding and picking away at the bad metal.
Another angle.
It was at this point that I realized I did not have any tin snips, and was unable to cut the hole out very nicely.
So what do you guys think? I have some pink gel from NAPA that's supposed to help eat up rust, and a bottle of black rust protecting spray paint. I'm inclined to just use that with the addition of some undercoating on the bottom side to keep this all relatively safe until I can have someone cut and weld it. But what do I know...
Thoughts?
Alternatively, if people really thought this was not structural, I could have a buddy "practice welding" a sheet of metal in there.
It is my track rat after all. Pretty is not required, but safe is and less money over time is :)
Thanks for any thoughts or opinons you'd like to share. Otherwise I'll probably chronicle my progress here.
I that more than likely the "proper" way to do this is to take it to a shop, and have them cut everything out and weld in a new floor piece. Sadly, I don't have a few hundred to throw at the track rat right now. And quite frankly, I don't really care that there is a hole in the floor. What I do care about is stopping the rust from spreading, and making sure it isn't structural.
So without further ado, here are the pictures I took today as I finally started to tackle it. The location is just behind the passengers seat. The bolt hole in the pictures is the rear right bolt hole for the seat.
The big ugly. Sander left in picture to help with scale.
Not quite holes yet. But I believe the metal is toast here. Haven't ripped away the underside yet.
The underside after the coating has been pealed back some.
Turns out my car might be an autobot...
After a wirebrush on drill has been taken to it. Local small town hardware store didn't have a wire brush for the angle grinder.
Top side after some more sanding and picking away at the bad metal.
Another angle.
It was at this point that I realized I did not have any tin snips, and was unable to cut the hole out very nicely.
So what do you guys think? I have some pink gel from NAPA that's supposed to help eat up rust, and a bottle of black rust protecting spray paint. I'm inclined to just use that with the addition of some undercoating on the bottom side to keep this all relatively safe until I can have someone cut and weld it. But what do I know...
Thoughts?
Alternatively, if people really thought this was not structural, I could have a buddy "practice welding" a sheet of metal in there.
It is my track rat after all. Pretty is not required, but safe is and less money over time is :)
Thanks for any thoughts or opinons you'd like to share. Otherwise I'll probably chronicle my progress here.
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