How to: Repair/Replace Rusty Floor in Vehicle - Complete Guide, Start to Finish

today I'll show how to replace this very  Rusty floor by cutting out all the bad metal cleaning up what's left piecing together and Welding in new metal and finally sealing everything  up so it doesn't rust again welcome back to the sixth  gear garage today I'm going   to be installing new floor pans  in my rusty 1980 Toyota long bed I already pulled the seat and vinyl  floor cover in a previous video now   I'm removing anything else that I don't want  to be accidentally damaged by any hot Sparks such as the seat belts and this wiring harness next I need to scrape and chisel off all the   factory sound deadening from any surface  that I'm going to be cutting or welding replacing Rusty floors is a long process  so I recorded a lot of this in time lapse  to keep this video short and still  show how much work is involved this truck is pretty Rusty  and the floor pans weren't   large enough for all the rust I have to cut out so I'll show how to install replacement floor   pans as well as fabricate floor  pieces from scrap sheet metal okay I've scraped off most of the sound deadening I left all this in the middle because I'm cutting   all this out anyways but I kind of want to  see the perimeter and see what lines up with   my floor pans and it turns out that these  reproduction floor pans aren't that accurate first of all this one's a  little warped but you can see   there's a raised lip right here and  that's designed to meet up flush with this   piece right here where the seat mounts so I can't exactly push this down right   now because because this 90 degree edge  here actually sits and gets welded against   the inside here and I can't really line  that up until the old floor is cut out but right off the bat I can tell that  it's not quite the same because this is   all smooth right here there's a small  cutout for the bolt hole for the body   mount but if you look at the original floor  you can still see where it's not completely   rusted out there's this gray surface here  and there's a little bit up here left and   then it kind of rolls down and then the whole  floor is a little bit sunken down right here   and that's what bolts the floor to the body  mount because the floor is part of the cab well in this I don't know if they intend this just  sit on top of this that's not what I'm going to   be doing here I want to actually have this be as  close as it was to the way it was from the factory   so I'll have to find a way to make that work  and there's some other inconsistencies as well   like the spacing of these uh raised areas  in the floor they're not exactly the same   but you know what it's a lot better than  this so I'll work with what I've got but   first step is going to be cutting out this  floor now I don't have enough material here   to actually go up so I'm going to fabricate  new metal for all this and this right here and there you can see it's just a  little bit short coming across and   of course I've got this inner panel  here which I'll completely fabricate   as well that's not going to be a huge deal  because it's not going to be that visible and they give you a lot of extra material over on  this side which is good because I have a lot of   really bad surface rust and pitting over here  and even extends up past this we'll see how   well I can clean that up if I'll need to cut  more out and extend this I can always do that and to do the cutting I have a cut off wheel all right so I have this cut  all the way around the perimeter  I had to use a hammer and chisel to get into the   very Corners where I couldn't  reach with the cutoff tool but it's getting stuck coming out because it  is still somewhat connected here where it goes   under this bolt that connects to the body  mount so even though this thing is old and   rounded off I am gonna have to find some sort of  socket to hammer on there to try and loosen that that actually went pretty well gloves on here try not to get tetanus I think what I'm seeing here is it there might  be there is there's another layer under here   probably for additional support since it's  near a body mount and the sheet metal for the   floor is spot welded to this other piece which  probably connected to the side of the cab here let's see if I can chisel out these spot welds all right now it should be free so where to begin with this mess well first of all this came out with the   floor it was just easier that way but you can see  there is a separate piece here and that's for some   extra support and I'll actually show you on the donor truck here's a better look at it here the top layer of   the floor is rotted away but  that piece is still intact  so I will have to fabricate something up to  make up for that and then here's the piece   of aluminum uh flashing that the one of the  previous owners installed under the hole and   we saw in the previous video the license plates  and that rubber sticky sheet were over the repair   area and actually probably kept a lot of water  from getting in the cab but unfortunately that   area is pretty bad I'm gonna have to uh  fabricate that because this is all rotted and the rest of this actually sounds really solid and you can see this lip here that is  just from the edge of the sheet metal   where the floor pan was spot welded  to the inside of this rocker panel and this black coating which probably kept the  rust from getting a lot worse is actually a   zeibart coating I don't know if you guys remember  Ziebart from I think they're on the 90s but that's   what all these little plugs are all around the cab  got any going down here down here down here what   they do is they drill a hole and they spray this  black sort of sticky undercoating on the inside   and you can see it probably does work because  I think this would be a lot worse if it didn't   have it of course down here on the rocker panel  is a bit of a different story so I'm definitely   going to have a rocker panel replacement  video coming up after I get this floor done so there's how the new floor is going to kind  of sit in there I just noticed something look   this is the inner plastic fender liner  and there's nothing behind it at all   I'm gonna take this out and see  exactly what's going on back here well it was just easier to pull the  whole front clip off because I'm   going to have to end up taking it off anyways and uh turns out this side isn't much better   but let's just focus on the driver's side for  now and it does get uglier behind the fender luckily this is all going to be hidden so I can   fabricate this using the skills that  I have and nobody is going to see it I've actually only ever done  two floor pan repairs before  one in my 1985 and the other in a  1969 International Harvester Scout   and I don't think either were this bad so my  next step is going to be continuing to clean   this up I'm going to go along this edge  here with a wire brush and get off all   that loose scaling rust see how that  looks underneath and remove the rest   of this inner floor pan here that's spot  welded to the inside of the cab rail here so drilling out spot welds is not a fun time  you can see there's one every few inches  they kind of blend in there's one right here  and we got one and this little recessed area right  here a lot of times they're a little bit lower  and there's one there got one there and I just need to drill every one   of those out and then this strip  of metal here will come right off and I should have picked up some  spot welding drill bits but instead   I'm going to use this uh step bit  it should also get the job done start by using a punch and put a  little divot in the center of each one give it a little bit of oil there to help it cut and this is taking forever sometimes you can pop them off  before you get all the way through it's a lot faster than waiting for this thing   I can't say I recommend the  Harbor Freight step drill bit instead of wasting more time with that step drill   bit I went straight to the Chisel  on the rest of the spot welds then I cleaned off the remaining seam sealer  with the wire wheel to get down to the bare metal so you saw I got the rest  of this old piece of floor   pan off after I busted all the spot wells off  and then went back again with the wire brush  and took off any remaining seam sealer that   was below that so I've got a nice clean  surface here except for all that rust  now some of this is just surface yet  a little on the heavy side but I'm   going to go through with now a sanding  wheel and see if I can grind that smooth you might remember this from the frame repair  video I did on my 1985 it has this attachment just   threads into there and then that goes on the drill  and that's good for tight sanding in tight areas and that wasn't getting into the pits very well  so what I'm using a wire wheel like this I'm going   to be running for a long time I save my cordless  drill for the small jobs so I don't burn that up I've got an old cheap corded drill here which  is great and also when you're using the wheel   like this eventually the wires will start to  bend in one direction so after maybe 30 seconds   go ahead and switch it in reverse and go the  other direction and that'll give you more bite the wire wheel worked a little better in  removing rust from the pitted areas but   I still needed something more aggressive to get  the metal surface 100 percent clean of all rust so you just saw me grind this down  with the sanding disc I tried it   with this flap wheel as well as this  wire wheel and if you look real close   this right here is good  metal see how that's silver  and this down here below it you can see it has  this black finish on it that is rust just because   it's not brown or orange anymore there is still  rust on this metal and it's still contaminated   and I cannot weld to this or else my weld  will be contaminated and eventually rust so I need to get something more abrasive  to get through this surface right here and for that I'm going to use a grinder the grinder was the way to go I  should have used it to begin with not only does it do a great job at removing  the pitted rust still left behind by the other   methods it also smoothed down what was left of  the spot welds that I broke off with the Chisel all right so it's getting there you can see before  an example of the black area where there actually   was rust on the surface and as we go down here  now you can see it is very reflective I do have   a spot right here I still need to grind but  uh aside from these small spots right here   I still need to grind that down  some more it's getting better got a big spot right here and right here unfortunately I can't get behind here  with a grinder because the body mount   of the frame is in the way what I can  do though is try and chisel the rest   of this off of here and see for one if  this is even solid and worth saving or   if I'm gonna have to weld in a whole  new piece of metal in here anyways   could actually just cut this entire Mount off  anyways because I am not going to use this Frame   I'm going to use the one that's under the other  1980 long bed but I do want to have a reference   here to line up my new floor so I'm going to  keep this in place and try and work around it so it's getting pretty thin back  here uh there's a hole right here   and this is all looking pretty bad I'm  just going to see if it's all this thin all right so it's not going through  it's a good sign I guess I'll just   try and keep chiseling away at the rest  down here and see how much I can clean up you know the more I look at this back  here the more I just don't like it I'm gonna go ahead and cut it all out I'll do a cut right here cut across the bottom  and I'll just take this all out here  because as you can see it's paper thin  and then this whole section here wraps around  the outside and rusts through right here so   I'll probably end up cutting this all out  as well and just build it all from new a little more than I bargained for but you know  what I don't want to have this rust come back first I drew a guideline with a sharpie and  then made a vertical cut with the cutoff wheel   being careful to only cut through  the top layer of sheet metal I might as well get the door out of the way some of these areas were so  Rusty that the spot welds   broke easily with just a chisel and no drilling all right time to bring out the big guns this will speed things up a little bit the Sawzall cut through the really  rusty thin metal like butter   the blade was also able to reach areas  I couldn't access with the cutoff wheel so I'm cleaning this up down here and I had  originally cut this line right here up here   and across here just because this was in my way  and now that I can see I'm left with a piece of   Steel right here that's spot welded onto the body  and that piece is actually flush with the rest of   this here so what I want to do is remove the rest  of this so that when my new sheet metal is welded   in it can be flush with this and not actually  have to go over this so I'm going to take all   the old sheet metal out and to make this easier  this time I went ahead and ordered some spot weld   drill bits off Amazon I got a five pack of these  it was like 20 something bucks I'll put a link in   the description and you can see these are made for  cutting out spot Welds they're flat with a little   point in the middle versus the angle of a normal  drill bit so this should go a lot faster now once I drilled out the spot welds the rest of  the sheet metal separated easily with a chisel okay I got these two pieces out from down there  those spot cutting drill bits do work a lot faster now you can see I did drill all the way through  here and that's all right because I can use these   holes to do plug welds to the back of the  new metal that I want to put on this side I'm going to go ahead and pop these two  covers off and see what the inside looks   like I gotta pop this one off anyways  because the rust is creeping up behind it so if you look inside these panels you can see  it's all sort of this black sticky coating inside   there and that is the Ziebart coating and if you  go over here and you look at the Oklahoma truck  which was never rust proof because you don't  really need to do that sort of thing down there it's just bare metal inside  and there is surface rust too so zeibart probably saved this truck  from rusting a lot worse than it has so let's keep cutting away all this cancer here I went ahead and removed the ecu so that's out   of the way and I've got some marks here I  marked every spot well that I'm gonna have   to drill out as well as a rough guide of  where I'm going to cut and replace metal  so this will be staying up here this down here  is all gonna go and I marked it from the outside   as well although you can't really see it right  there and right there because it's going to be   a lot easier to cut from the outside than it is to  squeeze myself in here and shoot Sparks in my face all right so here's my final cut line this is actually good metal behind here   despite having some surface rust the ziebart  has kept it from rusting from the back side so   that's on the front only so I don't need to cut  up into this at all I can leave this here and   just go down under here I will have to fabricate  a new little triangle for this corner as well but   first let me get all the old out so I can figure  out all the new I'm going to have to put back in I'm using the wire wheel to remove the rubberized   undercoating in order to see how  far the rust has crept up behind it so after grinding off all that  undercoating I can see about   how far the rust does come up on this  side and being on the outside of the   cab it's actually a little bit worse  out there than it is on the inside so I went ahead and put my lines about where I'm   going to cut to eliminate all  of the very bad Rusty sections straight across here and around and I'll get   up to right here for now and just  worry about getting this part out and then I'll worry about getting  this transmission total cut out here this is actually pretty bad I went to drill the  spot Weld and the Chisel went right through the   metal so I'm thinking all this is gonna have to  come out all the way up to probably right here in addition to cutting this out there  is a vertical spot weld that goes down   the side here in the engine bay and I  found the two spot Welds out to drill   out to release this piece of sheet metal from that and there's the piece I'm talking about right here now rather than sit here with a cut off wheel for  20 minutes I'm just going to get the sawzall and   see if I can blast right through this I've  already went through the engine bay and I   removed any sort of uh cables that were in the way  there was a e-brake cable and there was also the   speedometer cable so those are gone out of the way  I don't have to worry about cutting through those obviously be mindful of what's on the  other side of the floor especially when   you have uh brake lines and fuel lines  like you do on this side so if you really   careful when I'm cutting out this side of  the floor to watch out for those things well that didn't go well this is just so floppy that the uh  vibration of the reciprocating saw   is just vibrating this back and forth and  it's actually not actually cutting through it it's just moving with the blade so it looks  like I have to get a cut off wheel a lot anyways I tossed a bag over the shifter to protect it from  any hot flying Sparks that could cause pitting this was the point I realized I should finally buy   a welding blanket since I'll have a  lot of welding to do on this project I ended up getting a reasonably priced one  from Amazon that I'll put a link to in the   description along with all of the other  tools and supplies I used for this project out with the old and as I'm moving around my floor here  I got over to this part and wondered if   I really need to cut as high as I had my  original line marked here so I drilled a   couple holes here drilled a hole here and both  of those are very solid thick metal so I figure   I can lower my line a little bit and just do  one straight cut across down to this corner and that's it all the old rotted  rust metal has been cut out   now comes for the fun part figuring out  how I'm gonna weld all this new metal in I'm going to do that using some cardboard  templates but first I need to go around   every Edge inside and out and clean  off any remaining rust paint sound   deadening anything that prevents this  from being a clean metal Edge because   that's not going to be good to weld to if  there's any kind of contaminants on there and Tool of choice for that is the wire wheel  mounted on the drill and the nice thing is you   don't actually have to get under the truck to  get the back sides because you can obviously   go this direction you get the front sides flip  the direction to go counterclockwise and then   just put it under the edge and push up and  that'll clean the back side just as well rather than making a mess with  the wire wheel I used a hammer   and chisel to break off the sound ending  from the edges I needed to clean up and   then followed up with the wire wheel to remove  any remaining primer leaving clean bare metal and then repeated the same process on the   outside of the cab removing the  ziebart coating paint and primer so I just got done cleaning up all the  perimeter surfaces I'm going to be welding to now I use my wire wheel and just went  ahead and brushed around the edge as   you saw and some of the tighter smaller areas this was too big so I went back and I found some  of these older ones that I used but there's really   not much material left on it but I don't throw  them out because they're perfect for tight areas so I've just set this in place real Loosely  for a second as I mentioned before I am gonna   have to modify this floor to work uh the  fitment down here is not that great and   this should be cut out and recessed right here  but before I even get to that the first thing   I need to do is repair this area over  here because the edge of the floor is   actually going to weld to this so I need  to have this done first and then work my   way over here and to do that the first  step is going to be making a template I've got a piece of cardboard here I'm  just going to set this inside and uh   do a trace I'll do the outside perimeter  first to start with and then I'll go in   here on the inside and figure  out where I need to cut here now it's time to trace the cardboard  template onto my sheet metal and I've got a scrap here  that's just about the right size this little tiny strip here is going to  hang off but I don't mind just cutting   that off and trimming this  out and Welding it on later  just don't have to use a brand new piece and have all that waste I grabbed my Aviation Snips to cut this  shape out since it had some curves to it they come in sets of three and  the red ones are for left cuts the green are for right cuts and the yellow handled ones which I know I have   somewhere but haven't lost long  enough to Warrant buying new ones they're for straight cuts if you're cutting anything with a lot of   details or Curves I recommend  Aviation Snips over tin Snips I'll put a link to these in the description then I stripped any paint or primer from  The Edge using the worn down wire wheel   the short wires on the old wheel are more  aggressive and strip the surface down to   Bare Metal a lot faster than the longer  more flexible wires on the new wheel I'm using a bench vise to add bends in  the metal to match the shape of the body   and I needed to do a little more trimming  to get it to fit better I'd rather have to   remove a little more material later on than cut  it too small to begin with and have to start over for as simple as going from a cardboard  template to sheet metal sounds there   really is a lot of fine tuning to make  everything fit perfect like a puzzle especially on a piece like this with so many edges so the repair piece is finally trimmed  to exact size and I have it all clamped   in here and held in place with all these vice  grips and there's one more thing I have to do you can see I made a dotted line going across  here there's actually going to be another layer   of sheet metal on top of this so you can see  this little Ridge here comes out and then stops well I cut that off so I'm going to have  to continue that out and have it go down   to about right here and go down there  and that's going to make this all flush and then from there I'm going to have another  bracket sort of a support bracket that comes   out and goes across here and I'll show you on  the other truck what that's going to look like here this is what the one from the factory  was just kind of went out at a 90 and went   across just to give some extra support on the  body for all the weight on this body mount and you can see I have removed paint from  all around the perimeter where any welding   is going to take place I don't want that  paint to burn and contaminate my weld but I didn't do it right here yet  so I need to take off some paint   right there and I've already  got some paint off the bottom I don't know exactly where about this  will end I'm thinking right about here   is where it ended from the factory so I'll  take some paint off from right there too now it's finally time to weld here's the welder I'm using it's just a 120  volt Mig and I've got some C25 Argon gas   here and this is a perfect combination for some  sheet metal like I'm going to be welding today  this cabinet here is actually an old  server cabinet that I repurposed and   uh built a base and put some casters on  and now it's a perfect welding cabinet I have only got like four Outlets  out here in the garage so I moved   it over here everything is clamped in ready to go some spaces as you can see I'm gonna have to  massage a little bit once I get some other   tack weld started so I can tap that in with  a hammer a little bit to kind of form that   to match the curve of the body and down here  where I have my plug welds I'm going to do where I have the vice grips clamped  tight those are flush you can see   these over here they're not flush  so as I go along I'm going to move   these vice grips closer to my plug  welds so they'll be nice and flush start there 16 PSI I'm starting my first tack welds near the vice  grips where the metal is clamped together tightly moving the vice grips as I  add more tacks to other areas then once I'm happy with how the two pieces are   tacked together I'm going back  and Welding in between the tacks and then welded in each plug  weld where a spot weld used to be I used the Locking C-clamp vice grip to push this  sheet metal in to match the Contour of the body a ball peen hammer is also  great for stretching sheet metal links to those will be in the description and then worked my way around  the inside of the repair panel   all right here's how it turned out  I'm pretty happy with the results I did burn through in a couple spots I had  to go back and go down level on the heat to   A and then I was able to go back and weld in  these really thin areas where I'd burn through   see I actually have another hole right there anything smaller than that I'm not  going to worry about I can fill it   in with a seam sealer when  I go back over it with that I end up switching to C for some of  this because this was thicker metal here and there's the plug Welds down there and here on the inside same thing I  did use the ball peen hammer to kind   of tap this in and get it to form  and fit this curve here in the body and now I've got this panel all cleaned  up for my next layer which is going to   be a continuation of this raised Edge right here so I've got a couple of cardboard temples  here first this one is going to go right here   and continue that body line along the edge you  can see it just kind of tapers out toward the end   and then once I get this welded into place   I'm gonna go back with my bracket that  I'm going to use to go over this body   mount help distribute some of that weight the same bracket that we saw on the other truck   except mine is going to be a little bit more basic and that's going to weld into here now you might notice I'm not using any  weld through primer and I'm sure you're   going to get some comments about that I  really prefer fluid film at this point I've got plenty of access inside all of  the panels here I've got this opening   I've got all these openings along the door  edges I've got a rubber plug right here I   can easily get inside and spray a fluid film  in here to keep this from ever rusting again fluid film will creep over time around every  single spot weld and crevice that it touches and because this is all an enclosed cavity I  will only have to apply it one time because   it's not going to be getting washed off  whereas normally I'd apply a fluid film   before every winter season on something  that I'm going to drive through the winter right now I'm going to get these cardboard  templates transferred onto some metal all I have to bend the sheet metal is my old  bench vise and some thicker pieces of scrap steel I'm used to working with what I have on hand  so I was able to fabricate these pretty quickly then I went back and used the short wire  wheel to take off any paint from the perimeter however when I went to grind the paint from the  body mount bracket I realized I got a little ahead   of myself and couldn't reach all of the inside  edges and I had to bend it back flat on one side so clean all the edges first then bend any angles so I've got this sort of held into place  here and figuring out how I want to weld this what I think I'm going to do  is I've got this clamped in   I'm going to tack this in place to here pull this whole section back out weld   this all the way around outside of the  vehicle where I can get better access and then put it back in  place and weld this piece in and I know I just said a little bit ago I  wasn't going to need any weld through primer  but once I weld this on I'm going to have  almost a completely enclosed cavity I could   spray in here and hope that some ends  up in here but you can see there's only   a small area where any fluid film is going  to be able to get through so I'm going to   go ahead and spray the bare metal as  well as this bare metal with the weld   through primer just for a piece of mind I have a very old can uh 3M weld through   coating I'll put a link to a newer  version of this in the description wow and it's spraying out really heavy I'm thinking this might have froze at some point and a second light coat I actually went and ground   some of the welds down because  uh they weren't my best a couple things I need to do now is I need  to Mark a hole for where I need to drill a   hole through this for the body mount bolt and  to do that I'm just going to go underneath and just get a pencil go through there and just kind of  run this around the inside here next I need to get something sharp and scratch  the paint off at each one of these plug welds and this is so that I can start the arc  for the mig weld because it won't do it   if there's no bare metal showing for the ground and I don't need   to all the way around the perimeter because once  I get these welded this will be the ground and   they can just weld around the seams it doesn't  matter if there is zinc coating there or not there's my pencil mark so applied some more of the weld through zinc  coating on the back since I burned a lot of   that off when I was welding this together and  then on the other side while it's apart is a   good time to apply some self etch primer and  I did that around the hole that I drilled as   well as a top side of the hole now let's get it in place   see how it looks see the hole lines up well I'll  just drop this bolt in and kind of hold it still I needed to weld the front side of  the bracket from inside of the wheel   well so removing the wheel made more room to work and now I'm modifying the  floor pan to fit properly   starting with cutting a notch to clear the bracket this corner needed work as well  so I need to cut out this circle to  modify this floor pan to fit better  and this cutoff wheel is  definitely not ideal for that I clamped an old bearing race  on here to use as a guide Vevor sent me this 50 amp plasma cutter to review   and I discovered how much easier  a job can be with the right tools I'll put a link in the description for a couple hundred bucks  it's well worth the time saved I'm fabricating a drop down where the  new floor pan meets the body mount   bracket to make the design similar  to the way it was from the factory next I cleaned it all up with the grinder and applied some self etch primer before it  has a chance to start rusting on the surface I used a punch to put divots  every few inches along this   Edge and then drilled holes for plug welds all right let this dry overnight  because it sprayed out so thick and   heavy and now it is finally time  to get the new floor welded in here I got the new and the old side by side and   you can see I did have to end  up modifying this quite a bit I had to bend this corner and sort of  massage it with a hammer to bend it   down flat more like this one is I did  some massaging in this corner as well and of course I talked about cutting this out with  a plasma cutter and actually re-welding it in a   little bit lower so it ends up being flush with my  support right here just like the factory one was and this is only cut because I didn't want to go   under the cab and drill out all the  spot welds that held this to the cab  but here is the original tab on this one and I  went ahead and drilled some more holes and this   so that I can plug weld this to the inside  of my cab just like it was from the factory once I double checked and triple checked  that the floor pan was in the exact place   I wanted it I started with a few tack welds  on one side then I used the hammer and vice   grips to position the other sides as  I was ready to weld them into place all right I'm all tacked in from  here on back and across here and   this side here is pretty firm although  it's just pushed up against this Edge next thing I need to do is go under the truck  and do those plug welds to attach this side I'm working my way back to  the front because I'm gonna   have to adjust things up there anyway  since that's going to be all custom I want this to fit perfect right here well I just vacuumed out of the truck because I'm   about to crawl under there I lifted it up a little bit   higher and I heard some dripping my gas  tank has decided to start leaking again alright all the gas has had time through  that break let's get back to work so there they are I'm not the best  welder in the world never said I was  and I also did some Stitch welds along the  bottom for a little extra reinforcement   so I have one and a half sides of my new  floor panel uh sort of tacked in right now   and it came with a cut here to make this  I guess so you can adjust it and if you   look at this level here the bubbles way up  on this side so uh I'm actually gonna have   to push this down when I weld this in to  make this floor be a little bit more level and you can see it over here too  it's way up high right now so if   I push it down about this far that'll be perfect I'm guessing that's why they put this here once I attacked it in place I was  able to make a cardboard template   for the rest of the space between  the floor and the transmission tunnel rather than laying down one long continuous  weld you'll notice that I'm doing a lot of   tacks spread over the seam because  this helps to dissipate the Heat if sheet metal gets too hot it tends to warp and a long continuous bead can make that happen this isn't important here inside the cab   as say welding in a new quarter  panel where it will be visible  but it's still good not to  let the metal get too hot I'm welding on both sides of the floor  panel ridges first which heats up the   metal and makes it easier to flatten  the top of the ridges with a hammer then once the top of the ridges are flush  with the transmission tunnel I welded those to get this panel flush with the floor pan across   the bottom I wedged a piece of  wood behind it against the frame I used a magnet to hold this corner piece  in place until I had it all tacked in and then I cut a tiny strip to fill  the Gap here where the floor pan split so my next area of focus is  going to be in this big open   area here and a couple things I need to do first one I didn't really think about cutting this  off before I welded this in so you can see I   made a little line here where I'm going to have  to cut this and it's going to be a pretty tight   area but I should be able to get it and  they're pretty much with the cutoff wheel and as it gets closer to this tight corner where   I can't reach I'll make some  relief cuts to get in there and I'm also going to trim this down a little  bit and just make this flush so I can put one   big piece right here instead of having to worry  about that little tiny right angle to work around since this was an irregular surface with  some compound curves I held the template   flush against the back with some duct tape to  help the cardboard keep the shape of the cutout I started welding the bottom  first and worked my way up this way I could use the hammer to tap the curved   upper section into place as  I welded closer to the top all right and with this piece  done we're getting real close  I've got one small section up here left and that's going to be near a lot of wiring  I could try and stuff this welding blanket up   there and tuck it around somehow but what  I'm going to do instead is just take the   whole blanket ball it up stuff it against this  and well this last piece in from the outside  I've got a little better access  a little bit more room to work and I don't have to worry about catching anything  on fire or melting anything from the outside all right it's stuck in there all nice  and tight I've got a magnet holding on   this little piece from the outside we'll get  some tacks in it and then weld in the rest all right let's see what kind of Sparks  the welding blanket absorbed here oh it's warm yeah look at that so welding blanket disposable  but a good investment all right I am officially done welding on the  driver's side floor it's all come together pretty   nice I'm happy with these welds I'm definitely not  a professional welder but uh good enough for me now my next step is to seal all this  and I have some seam sealer here  however before I can use this I need to prime  it and I have some self-etching primer here  however before I can use this I need to clean the  welds with the wire brush one more time to make   sure that there's no burnt areas around the welds  however if you notice especially on the inside   here some of these are a little bumpy I've got  a lot of high points here so before I even use   the wire wheel on those I'm gonna hit it with  a grinder first to make them a little bit more   flush now if this was in the exterior Bodywork I'd  make sure this was exactly flush with the surface   but because it's all going to be hidden under the  vinyl mat it doesn't have to be perfect I'm just   kind of knocking down the high points here it's  making a little more smooth for these products well they're all nice and cleaned up now   and here's uh what I did I just kind of ground  them down to make them a little bit less raised I didn't bother grinding down all the way  smooth because it's going to be covered   up but this left a big mess this is all the  grindings and a lot of wires from the wire brush always wear eye protection when you're using   these wire wheels because these  things just fly off all the time I'm gonna vacuum this up with a shop  vac even get down here in the cracks   and then I'll almost be ready to apply the primer before I can spray this this primer on the surface I'll go over it with some Degreaser first and   make sure that any kind of oils or wax  or contaminants are removed so that way   I'll get a better bond with my self etch primer and you don't want to use paper towels  because they will break down you get   lots of little pieces stuck on all the  welds so you want to use something like   a cloth that's not going to shred  if it rubs over any of the welds and look at that and same goes for the outside too after giving any remaining Degreaser  plenty of time to air dry I sprayed   a coat of self-etching primer over  all the welds and areas of bare metal I let the self-etching primer dry according to the   manufacturer's instructions plus plenty of  extra time because it was cold in the garage then it was time for the seam sealer I'm using my finger to press the sealant  down into any spaces next to the welds and   also applying enough pressure to push it  through any tiny pinholes that I have in   my welds it may not look pretty but  a good seal is what's important here I used the seam sealer on  every weld inside and out I'll put a link for the seam sealer and all the   other materials I've used for  this project in the description I ran out of rubber gloves but you may  want to use them to keep your hands clean here you can see where I had  a few pinholes in my welds alright I let the sealant dry overnight  and now the driver's floor is done I'll put some paint on this later on  after I repair the passenger side floor and now this old truck is finally  ready for the road thanks for watching well unfortunately I didn't get  too far on just 32 ounces of gas   and now this old truck is finally  ready for the road thanks for watching all right so this is getting there it's  getting better you can see there's a little   bit of you can see there are some still  you can see their ills you might remember   this from the primer paper you might  remember this from the frame repaired and my tool of choice for that  is going to be the wire brush no   Mark we're gonna need to drill a hole for this uh  bullet this well I just vacuumed under the trunk

Channel: 6th Gear Garage

Views: 296,266

Keywords: how to, how do i, repair, replace, fix, cut, weld, rust, rusty, floor, panel, car, truck, vehicle, toyota, pickup, hilux

Id: PIHKSPKmnjg

Length: 51min 45sec (3105 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 24 2023