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If my Jeep was religious, it would be a Rustifarian. Someone once said, if your jeep is so rusty you need a new floor pan, get a new jeep.
But I love my XJ, So here is the long story, short...
Was garaged when I was living in an apartment. Garage flooded with 6 inches of water (only tires sat in it). It was winter, water froze, making it to where it couldn't be fixed (the garage that is) until it melted. I'd say it was in this garage for about 2-3 months like this. When I complained about how it ruined my Jeep among other things, they said to take it up with my renters insurance, as if that was going to do anything for me. Dunno, maybe I should have thinking back, but it's probably too late for all that now.
So that is the reason for my girl getting rusty. I live in Colorado. It's very DRY here, and now I have a house and a legit garage that doesn't flood. So I'm thinking even if dealing with this rust is a huge pita, once done, I should be good to go for quite a long while...
With all that said, here are the pics of the drivers side (passenger is about the same):
Should I replace the floor pans, clean off the rust from frame and paint it? or do you think the frame rust looks to be more than surface rust? Ironically, the rockers are in perfect condition still.
I need advice on what to do, and if I do go the route of replacing floor pans, etc... what to expect? Can it be done without welding or with just a few newb spot welds, industrial adhesive, and rivots combo etc....
It has a rust country 4.5 lift with 1in spacers (5.5 total lift)… If I scrapped this to buy a new jeep, would it be worth keeping this for parts? Should I swap the lift? Aside from the rust, EVERYTHING works great on this jeep and I'd really like to keep it... notice that newish looking Tcase… wasn't cheap... probably less than 10k miles on it too.
Last edited by HighOnLift; 08-17-2018 at 02:35 PM.
Did you do the hack stuff to the spring hanger and the bottom of the frame? I'd fix that properly before all else.
Otherwise the rust isn't on any of the primary structure. It would take some time but could be made good as newish by welding new floor pans in.
Modern panel adhesive is amazing, but in my opinion it requires that the fitment is a lot better than most aftermarket sheetmetal will give. If you know how to work the metal it's no big deal, but it takes practice to be able to do that. If you weld them in it's more forgiving for working the panel in place as you go.
A cheap Hobo Freight MIG welder will do everything you need for repairing that stuff. Might as well just buy one and learn.
Did you do the hack stuff to the spring hanger and the bottom of the frame? I'd fix that properly before all else.
Otherwise the rust isn't on any of the primary structure. It would take some time but could be made good as newish by welding new floor pans in.
Modern panel adhesive is amazing, but in my opinion it requires that the fitment is a lot better than most aftermarket sheetmetal will give. If you know how to work the metal it's no big deal, but it takes practice to be able to do that. If you weld them in it's more forgiving for working the panel in place as you go.
A cheap Hobo Freight MIG welder will do everything you need for repairing that stuff. Might as well just buy one and learn.
I did not do the hack job, that was courtesy of a suspension and tire shop that originally put all this on. Apparently they said they had to cut a hole there to gain access. What do you think I should do to take care of that? Have some sort of sleeve or plate welded over it?
And decided I am going to replace floor pans, but not thrilled about this idea. Every video I've seen of this just is an extreme nightmare. I'm starting to wonder how much a body shop would charge for this. I think one of the first things I'm going to do is just gut all the rust out, cut down to good metal, and seal it all off with rust protection. Then in the meantime of not having floor, may just implement some wooden panels temporarily. What sucks the most about this is that it's such an unknown until digging in. The rust could be much worse, or not as bad as what it looks like now. I think I will get a mig and weld it in. I welded my exhaust a couple years back when I ripped it off trailing and it's held fine ever since, despite never having welded anything in my life before that.
My biggest concern is that brace that holds the seats. It's not a part you can buy, and every video I have seen, they were toast and no way to save and reuse them. So at some point, will have to have something fabricated. All this is unknown territory for myself.
I did not do the hack job, that was courtesy of a suspension and tire shop that originally put all this on. Apparently they said they had to cut a hole there to gain access. What do you think I should do to take care of that? Have some sort of sleeve or plate welded over it?
For the hack on the bottom of the uniframe rail, I'd cut apart what they did, clean it up properly, weld through prime it, weld the original piece back in or make a new one from 14ga with continuous welds, then do a 1/8" doubler over it with fished ends and again continuous welds. For the hack on the side of the spring hanger, I'd cut that off and see how bad what's going on under there is. If the hole is reasonably close I'd probably just clean it up and weld a thick washer on it, if it's mangled badly I'd make a big washer out of 3/16" and weld it in place around the entire perimeter.
Good prep and weld through primer are your friends.
Originally Posted by HighOnLift
And decided I am going to replace floor pans, but not thrilled about this idea. Every video I've seen of this just is an extreme nightmare. I'm starting to wonder how much a body shop would charge for this. I think one of the first things I'm going to do is just gut all the rust out, cut down to good metal, and seal it all off with rust protection. Then in the meantime of not having floor, may just implement some wooden panels temporarily. What sucks the most about this is that it's such an unknown until digging in. The rust could be much worse, or not as bad as what it looks like now. I think I will get a mig and weld it in. I welded my exhaust a couple years back when I ripped it off trailing and it's held fine ever since, despite never having welded anything in my life before that.
My biggest concern is that brace that holds the seats. It's not a part you can buy, and every video I have seen, they were toast and no way to save and reuse them. So at some point, will have to have something fabricated. All this is unknown territory for myself.
A body shop would likely be very pricey unless there's a Mexican/illegal labour type place, just because it takes so long to do it properly.
There is no point going in there and hacking bigger holes in it and trying to seal anything. Do it right or don't bother. You will likely need to cut out most of the floor based on what I'm seeing. I'd recommend picking up a speed blaster (little handheld sand blaster) and a bunch of wire wheels, along with some tarps, fans with filters, a good shop vacuum, an angle grinder and a bunch of thin disks, etc, then pull the interior and start removing material that's obviously screwed. You can wire wheel and blast areas that aren't too bad, but once there is significant pitting it will need to be cut out for a proper repair. Rust is very hard to kill, and leaving any of it will cause it to come back. Once you start trying to fix this the vehicle is going to be down until you're done with everything.
I replaced my floor pans two years ago in the middle of summer in 100 degree heat. I did the grunt work of removing everything and my BIL that is a master welder, welded the new pans in then I did everything after that. It's a dirty, sucky job that is much easier with two folks. Did I mention it sucks?
The seat brackets that you mentioned, I had a shop to bend some new ones up and they still took a lot of massaging to get in correctly.
I was looking up something else not too long ago and I ran across a company that is making the seat brackets now. I don't remember the name of the company but with a little google work, you can probably find the name of the company.
So what I was talking about above, was cutting out and cleaning the current rust from the floor pans, and sealing off the bare metal, to at least stop the bleeding until I can get around to installing floor pans. Is that not really a worth while effort? Was hoping by doing that I could at least stop rust from spreading.
On the frame, I will take that to a legit shop. I just wouldn't trust myself to do anything structural. But I will at least wire brush off any rust I can see on it in that area, and seal it off with some rust over paint or something like that. Once again, I'm just trying to figure out a way to stop the rust using stuff I already have and is cheaply available, until I can spend more time and money replacing panels. I'll get some more pics up, but I'm scared to pull the carpet up at this point. I also want to drive this around in the winter and that carpet probably only thing keeping air from just rushing in unchecked.
I've been watching some vids and will be doing a lot of practice welding. If I only I was still in Indiana I'd have at least a dozen buddies all extremely proficient welders to show/teach me but stuck out in Colorado all by my lonesome.
Ok, i get where youre coming from, but as mentioned above, dont get in there start scabbing over stuff with rust paint. Any paint you put down is more crap you'll have to wirewheel off later. Cant weld onto paint.
The seat risers? If they're ok, and the area of pan under them is ok, leave em alone. If theyre ok but the pan isnt... Carefully drill the spotwelds. But LEAVE THE RISERS ALONE. Never cut good metal out.
Just because you get full length pans doesnt mean you have to use it all. Cut and section the bits you need.
Ok, i get where youre coming from, but as mentioned above, dont get in there start scabbing over stuff with rust paint. Any paint you put down is more crap you'll have to wirewheel off later. Cant weld onto paint.
The seat risers? If they're ok, and the area of pan under them is ok, leave em alone. If theyre ok but the pan isnt... Carefully drill the spotwelds. But LEAVE THE RISERS ALONE. Never cut good metal out.
Just because you get full length pans doesnt mean you have to use it all. Cut and section the bits you need.
Great advice and didn't even think about how i'd be doing extra work later on by having to scrape the paint back off, you are 1000% correct. Sounds like I just need to order the pans and do it all together. This is going to be a winter/spring project since I'll want to practice welding for at least a month or so before getting in this deep. I don't want to do anything half a$$ed, so I'll be buying a legit welder, and possibly even adding a 220 to my utility box to support it. I'm expecting to drop about $500 in just welder and gear if I can get away with it. One thing I have learned over the years is that by going cheap, I only end up making it harder on myself.
Who knows, by the time I finish the floor pans, I may actually feel comfortable enough taking on that frame. Wife and I have pretty much decided we are always going to have this jeep so it's worth rebuilding whatever I need to over time.
The Lincoln 110 is a solid unit, affordable, and plugs into a standard wall socket.
When you do the pans, resist the urge to cut everything out at once. These are unibodies, the floor is part of the structure. Do one side start to finish, then the other. This will prevent any sagging/twisting of the body.
08-17-2018, 02:29 PM
procRUSTination? Need rust advice...
