repairing floorpan and trunk area rust holes

hello,
i have a few rusted out spots in my floor pan and want to repair them.
i am leaning towards knocking the loose rust off and using por-15.
for the holes i was going to use some sheet metal and rivit it in.

what tool should i use to remove the loose rust. i bought something from 3m that sorta looks like a black choir boy pad on steroids that attaches to my drill. it seems to work ok. what works the best.

what are those 4 oblong holes in the floorboard. i was guessing that i where they picked the body up at the assembly plant ? . one of mine is rusted out , i am thinking of just covering it with metal. the other ones came loose but i could clean them up and put them back down with some sealer

how thick of metal should i put down there. the thicker it is the harder it will be to form it close to the original holes. my holes are maybe 4 inches square.

which color of por-15 works best. i dont plan on painting the floorboard, but i do want to paint the trunk, after the por-15. did you use the por-15 prep stuff first ?

i could remove some sections from my parts car and maybe even weld them in, if they could be welded with a stick(arc) welder. it would be a lot more work for me though, because i would have to move the parts car up to some electric or air to cut the pieces out, because a torch would warp the metal too much. The bottom of my car will never be show condition anyway, but i hate looking under a car and seeing shiny sheet metal patches and rivits.

i guess i am just looking for some guidelines in what tools to use and the best way to proceed.

it's a shame the old messages were lost.


thanks

randy

 

Randy,

I couldn't find my posts regarding my trunk and floor pan. They must have been lost with the hacking. It's unfortunate as I had a bunch of photos (which I still do have) included with all my instructions.

How bad are the rusty holes? If they're not too bad, you could use fiberglass matting. I bought a POR15 trunk kit a couple of cars ago and it had that in it. If they're not that big, you can paint over the hole area then lay the pieces of fiberglass to dry in the POR15. If they're pretty big, then you may want to replace with metal.

I used what sounds like the same abrasive wheel on my car. I took it down to about half its diameter by the time I was done with both the floor pan and trunk. The prep turns leftover rust into zinc oxide. I used it on both the trunk and floor pan prior to painting. I did this in several steps over a few weekends too. I used the black POR15. On my 71 GS455 I used the silver in the trunk. I didn't like it as much.

As far as painting after, I highly recommend having your trunk spatter paint before you lay down the POR15. You'll want to spatter it while it is still tacky. Otherwise the spatter paint will run once water touches it (even with some clear over the top). The alternative is to scuff prior to spatter painting. Nothing seems to adhere to dry POR15.

The trunk of my Skylark had a bunch of water on it recently. That was its first test and there wasn't any running. I went through several cans of the black/aqua spatter paint. I like it the best.

Remember to have some fans running and vent the fumes. They're pretty nasty!