I discovered a bit of carpet padding protruding below my 82 rabbit flooring a few months back and further investigation revealed some serious rust issues. Yesterday I started the teardown and took several pictures but these are the floors as they were yesterday - some already cleaned up with the wire wheel. I have replacement pans for the fronts and I will patch the rears via welding and/or fiberglass. I am following a great thread on the vortex for this task posted by Andy Watson. He took a month to finish his in a garage, I have a driveway so who knows how long this will take?
Anyway here's what 32 years of leaks can do (none now that I have found but will keep looking)
Front Drivers Floor (worst)
Rear drivers floor
Front Passenger Floor - note crack at firewall and all down right side
REar passenger floor
So I'll try to post progress as I get through this. trying to take cell phone pics as I go, not the best quality but not too bad.
Got a link to the vortex thread?
I have some welding pics in my RIP old Blue post.
Sticking a Rabbit back together is how I learned to weld so you'll see some very crappy welds at the beginning of that thread.
Carpet going through the floor,.. but it looks like the front seats aren't yet
'91 Golf gasser converted to a 12mm pump, M-TDI.
'84 1.6TD Rabbit with a VNT-15 turbo, still setup to run on vegetable oil.
'84 GTI with 1.7TD pistons and intercooled.
2003 TDI wagon
2000 TDI Jetta.
yep right here http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.p ... Floor-Pans
surprisingly no seat movement, the seat mounts are on rock solid metal. But Fred Flintstone and I would have had something in common if I didn't get to this soon. Did a little more cutting after work today on the driver's floor - firewall/front section is solid except for some small areas I'll have to patch. Cutting everything to fit in perfectly will be a little challenging, probably a "measure 5 times, cut once" along with some file/grind to fit. I have to reconfigure my Mig welder to actually use the gas, I've been lazy for the last 11 years and run it with flux core wire which does not make the best welds. Getting mating surfaces down to clean, clean, clean metal will also be challenging since getting the grinder into the corners can be tough.
Missing driving it already, guess I'll just have to drive the Jetta more.
Slow progress with working long days but got the old drivers side pan cut out and check fitted the new one and cut it to length. Also did lots of grinding to get down to bare metal but my shipment of primer and POR15 got damaged in transit so I'm waiting for replacements.
Lots more to do, found more rotted out seam along the rear floor pan to rocker panel area.
I have a hard time welding upside down so I drill some holes in the pan to buttonhole weld it to the support that runs under it.
'91 Golf gasser converted to a 12mm pump, M-TDI.
'84 1.6TD Rabbit with a VNT-15 turbo, still setup to run on vegetable oil.
'84 GTI with 1.7TD pistons and intercooled.
2003 TDI wagon
2000 TDI Jetta.
Exactly what I plan to do. I'll have to fab some new angles for the top of the brace, the flanges were not in good shape. I did enough upside-down welding on my 80 back in 2003 when I had to rebuild the rear mounts for the rear axle mounting points and surrounding metal. Don't really want to do that again but I'll have to do at least some of that since the edges of the pan under the seat mount cross member are rusted out in spots too and there's no good way to weld from topside. I'm really missing having this car on the road, need to find a good way to expedite this project without taking shortcuts.
well I am 7 weeks into this project with only a few hours per week I can devote to it. I now have both front pans welded in although rust pits, zinc coating, glue that won't go away and probably a few other factors have conspired to make some of the ugliest welds I have ever seen. However they are very strong and will suffice since cosmetics is insignificant for this effort. 2-3 coats of POR 15 have been applied, brushable seam sealer applied on all the topside seams. The insides of the rocker panels were rusted out on both sides where the rear rails of the seats mate up although it was just some holes and the seat structure was still very strong. I made up some pieces of angle to weld in above the rails to close up those areas. I also bought some Eastwood sealer made for rust sealing inside cavities so once all the underside fabrication and sealing is done I will treat the inside of the rocker panel areas and up into the firewall. I will have to get the car up in the air to fab up angle pieces to connect the underside of the floor pans nicely to the rockers. Using weld through primer and also POR15 metal prep or Naval Jelly to get the metal rust free. Then once all sealed up on the bottom I'll paint with POR15, do the caulking gun tube seam sealer, paint again, then many many coats of undercoating. That will all probably be there after the rest of the body turns to dust.
I also used a can of Flex Seal to seal the heater plenum better to the rain tray after cleaning all that as best I could. I noticed during the project that I was getting some seepage on the passenger side floor pan and it looked like it was trickling down behind the heater/AC box so now the rain tray is super clean and sealed. the Flex Seal spray goes on very nicely and appears to do a nice job sealing. I have a ton of pictures and may post some more when I get time to move some over to my picture account. 7 weeks without this car is inducing some withdrawal symptoms. Hope to be back on the road in 2 or 3 weeks if I can keep getting 3 or 4 hours a week into it.
some updated pics after all topside work is done
A new hole found near rear seat, now patched
front drivers pan which was what I first found bad
Ugly spots near rear swing arm mounts - new phase of the project to fix
Passenger side
Drivers side
