Small hole in floor / little surface rust... 71' Safari - repairing?

Discussion in 'Cosmetic & Restoration' started by 72KingswoodEstate, Aug 8, 2007.

  1. 72KingswoodEstate

    72KingswoodEstate Well-Known Member

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    Small hole in floor / little surface rust... 71' Safari - repairing?

    Believe it or not, I have found another early 70s Pontiac Safari 3-seat wagon (same style as all of the 71-76 GM wagons) with some minor rust issues on the underside that I was thinking of buying (@ a fair price). Overall, its very solid!

    #1 - the floor area where the 3rd seat mounts is a little rusty. In fact, it looks like some metal may have to be welded in there. Its strange, because all around that, the floors are like new - not even surface rust. I guess the leaky side windows are to blame for that. Has anyone else with one of these with rust in that area and had success in repairs?

    #2 - the LR floor has a dime size hole, but its not all the way through, or even soft. I checked it. Was there more than one "layer" of metal to the floor? Its just like the very outside part of the floor is rusted - all around that area is fine too.... not even any surface rust. There is another spot like this on the RF floor - its about the size of a quarter- again, not soft, it feels solid, but you can see and feel that the extreme outer layer is gone. Perfect all around it.

    #3 - On the LF floor, on a seam, there is like a little hole area that goes into a crease area... only surface rust.

    #4 - spare tire area has a hole rusted out- about the size of a softball. How do you recommend a repair of a spare tire carrier area?

    Now, on the small hole areas that are not all the way through, what do you recommend be done in this situation?

    I am guessing simply sanding a little, apply some rust proofer, let it dry then apply some black rustoleum spray paint or something like that rubber undercoating spray to keep the rust from spreading?

    Any advice appreciated!
     
  2. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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  3. 80cutlass

    80cutlass New Member Charter Member

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    hey bubba look for some por 15 they have a few different products and i,ve never heard any bad stuff about the products,,,,,,thats what i would use on the minor rust and you can do the fiberglass patch on the rear floor and the por 15 people have a patch kit of sorts also that seems to work but,,,,i prefer to cut and weld :D
     
  4. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, 80, I'm with you - cut and weld, but I use POR -15 after the Metal Ready phosphate - kills the oxidation and etches the metal.

    I'm cleaning under the car today, as a matter of fact, and then Metal-Ready, then POR-15, then undercoating (Dominion Sure Seal). But floor patches, well done the first time, will save a lot of Flintstone shoe-leather later...:bigsmile:

    Here's a pic of the Canadian 1978 Donor car's driver side floor - er, carpet vent!:
    http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u234/StorminNormanSquire/IMG_1931.jpg

    My own (Mexican Floor) still has the primer and factory paint on it. In Mexico, they apply the undercoat about 1/4" thick when your car has A/C, so nothing got to the usual weak spots (driver/passenger floor, side edges at the rails, seat belt fasteners, seat bolts, running boards or rear quarters.)

    When we were in Guadalajara, they'd get flash rain storms dumping so much water, that the cabbies would push their floating VW beetles on top of the water to the next rise in the street!, so all that extra undercoat helped keep the VW's double floorpan from collecting water. I think mine got the same treatment.:bouncy:
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2007
  5. 80cutlass

    80cutlass New Member Charter Member

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    wow dude did you pull that out of lake michigan???? man thats crusty errr rusty err just plain yucky,,,,being up here i dont see much rust like that generally and dont miss it at all :yikes:
     
  6. 80cutlass

    80cutlass New Member Charter Member

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    its funny though i worked for continental airlines a number of years ago and we got this turd hearse err lavatory service truck which was a ford f- 250 extended wheelbase truck with the tank inside the bed and it spent it,s life in phoenix before we got it and i was surprised to see the rust in the nooks and crannies of the cab especially coming from arizona i dont know if the corrosion was from the poopy stuff it carried or what but the floors actually had some corrosion more than what i expected :confused:
     
  7. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Luckily for the old fellow that owned it, that the carpet was so stiff from all the salt that you drag in with your boots every day, during the winter, that it still felt solid. The guy was a retired city politician, kind of on the high end of his weight class. :evilsmile:

    When I was stripping the car apart I never noticed if the carpet was dipping down. I never drove it. He drove it into my backyard and took his plates, and by 8 o'clock that cold evening, the power train was out. Maybe the carpet was frozen stiff? What that picture doesn't show is that almost the entire perimeter of the floor was rusted through. That's how I know where I need to focus under my car to keep the rust away.

    The old Chevys were bad for it too (1950's and 1960's), but at least they had that monstrous X-frame. You could put a piece of plywood down to keep the water from the puddles from smacking you in the face! :hide:
     
  8. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Baseball players would have had a hayday here yesterday and last nite! They reported Baseball-sized hail-stones in some parts of our Province!

    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/08/10/storm-manitoba.html

    We got the smaller nickel-sized ones up here and sheets of rain and wind speeds at least to 50 MPH. Well, my wife hugged me a lot. I got bored and fell asleep and she woke up several times. It was quite a light-show for an hour, until the street lights cut out. She got up early and woke me up to tell me there was no power, and I told her to wait a minute. Bingo! On came the power, alarm clock just a blasting!

    Supposed to be more tonight! :banghead3:

    How's that old seaman's saying? "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morn', sailor be warned."

    Too wet to crawl under the car today, and its gonna crank up around 3:00 PM. It was a red sky this morning. Bah humbug!
     
  9. 72KingswoodEstate

    72KingswoodEstate Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for that information! Does not seem that bad at all! If worse comes to worse, I have a 2nd cousin that owns a body repair shop and I may can get him to do all of the work for me. :D

    Luckily, the floors and frame on my 72' Caprice wagon are perfect - HOWEVER, I do have some rust in the spare tire well that needs tending too ASAP. Thanks to a leaky rear window, rather than salt. We do not get much snow here, so not much salt goes to the roads.

    I have noticed a couple of very small spots on the floors where the undercoating has flaked off and has some surface rust there. I think some rust proof paint and/or undercoating will take care of that.

    Strange, my 73' Grand Ville does not have factory undercoating like the wagon has... both are local cars - was undercoating an option back then on the GM cars? The Grand Ville also only has some surface rust - no holes at all anywhere.

    The holes on that Fairmonts wagon floors are unbelievable! I have never seen rust like that before! I did know of a guy on another wagon forum from somewhere in Canada that had a late 80s Buick wagon with some huge floor holes. I could not believe it.

    Thanks again!
     
  10. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    My dad always bought his with Factory Undercoat, so I did too. Keeps the resale value up. :D

    I finished mine yesterday. I'm doing a full color change so I took off all the drain plugs and primed and painted the primed factory floor and tire well while I primed and painted the door and tailgate frames, too!

    But cleaning the underside didn't take long and most of the original undercoat wasn't flaking off or dried up. They must have used that rubberized stuff that sticks like poop in a diaper! :) I used the Dominion Sure Seal stuff in spray can for the hard to reach spots, then the brush on (ha! brush-on my foot!) over the flat sections of the floor (underneath).

    http://www.dominionsureseal.com/productsdetails.asp?id=79&catid=30

    I put new sound deadener sheets on the inside floor with the spray undercoat as the 'glue'.

    In short, I covered her bottom. :evilsmile:

    Anyway, good to hear you've got somebody with the right tools. Its worth the trouble. When I think that the new 'cross-over' wagons cost over $30K, I just grease up my elbows and get down to it! :D
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2007
  11. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Didn't GM have some kind of a liner inside the tire well? Mine was in good shape without a liner, but it had all kinds of scratches to the paint, primer and down to the metal. I was thinking if I used material like the PVC front fender wheel wells (I've got the two from the donor car), and bonded a ring of that inside there and on the high spots on the well 'floor', that it might help protect the metal longer. I remember the Rivieras had those fancy carpet covers, but my well is in the floor, over the gas tank.
     
  12. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    We've got a bodyshop vendor here with links to the product manufacturers that he reps. I use it to get tips from the manufacturer pages. Most are US companies, with divisions in Canada, but they usually link back to the US site for their "How To" instructions.

    http://www.rondex.ca/products_products.html
     
  13. 80cutlass

    80cutlass New Member Charter Member

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    you can use that rhino liner stuff ,,,the local parts stores carry a variant of that stuuf you can brush or roll on,,,,i would prefer something of that nature versus lining the wheel well with a liner thats not completely bonded to the surface which can allow moisture to accumulate,,,,kinda like those plastic bedliners for pickups,,,,,,i saw a nice straight import truck one time with a totally rotten bed inside from moisture between the bed and liner :)
     
  14. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Does it etch into the metal? I thought the Dominion Sure-Seal stuff did that. hmmm...
     
  15. 80cutlass

    80cutlass New Member Charter Member

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    no the rhino liner doesn,t kinda scuff and roll or spray but its tougher than snot,,,our old shop truck and line maintinence trucks had it in the beds and it held up really well,, you could probably etch, prime and rhino liner and it will last forever,,,,i have no doubt your spare tire well will ever see the abuse these trucks did :icon_drive:
     

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