69 coupe floor pan refurbishment

[JayEstes 172]

OK. Gimme your advice:

 

I want to recondition the floor pan. Mine is in pretty good shape, but I am going to take all sound insulation off, and clean up any rust down there. After I get it sand-blasted down and cleaned up, I think I would like to go back in with some good self-applied truck bed liner... before I add the sound insulation and carpet pad, and carpet.

 

My thinking is that this material is very durable, water resistant, and would protect the metal in the future. I am thinking of doing this for all floor steel, all the way back to and including the gas tank.

 

So, what do you think? What are the pros and cons? Is it possible the new material could trap water in some undesirable way? What other unintended consequences might I run into?

 

Happy to hear all your experienced advice.

Thanks,

[DRASTiK 22]

I used it in my trunk area, but do not intend to use it on my floor pans. I don't know of a reason that you couldn't other than the fact that you won't ever want to try and remove it. I also used an aerosol form of bedliner to coat the undercarriage. It's much thinner than the brush-on stuff, but protects against rock chips, etc. a bit more than paint. If you decide to use it on your floor pans, keep in mind that you'll need to keep it out of threaded holes (like the seat belt bolt holes, for example), so you won't have issues installing the bolts.

[JayEstes 172]

Thanks. That all makes good sense.

 

One followup question: how do you get under and clean the undercarriage? Did you just jack the car and work on your back? Is there a better way? Seems to be a really nasty job with all the crud coming down on you while working. I haven't gotten there yet, but I am gonna have to go there at some point....

[Mike65 476]

The easiest way would be to mount the car on a rotissurie.

[DRASTiK 22]

Rotisserie is definitely the best way to go. I put mine on a lift and get under it that way.

[dzahm 10]

A suggestion for cleaning the floor(since yours looks very nice) Laquar thinner and a red scotch brite pad- it wont touch rust- but its fast, easy, cheap and your floors will look like the day it was assembled prior to primer. I couldn't beleive how well it worked for my floors/cowl/trunk. Get clean up thinner; (not the "good" kind) about 30$ for a 5 gal bucket. (you won't need that much but you can soak parts in it, clean up spray guns, etc) I went back with epoxy primer, mainly cause my floor looked so damn good. Was your car gold? (cause it sure looked like mine prior to the above)

 

Oh the scotch brite/laq thinner trick also removes the residue you will have from the tar like seam sealer once you have scraped it off too

[JayEstes 172]

Wow! I definitely love and am a tad afraid of the idea of a rotisserie! I have not heard of this, and looking at it, I can see how that would sure be the best way to refurb the floor. But, It also looks like something I would spend a lot of time building and setting up and testing.

 

dz: I didn't know about "clean up thinner", can I get that at a local parts house? Sounds like just what I need. Also, you talk about removing the "tar like seam sealer". What did you do to replace that? Did you use some RTV or silicone or ?? I was kind of thinking of leaving that in place (mine is in good shape - at least looking at it). I'm thinking of some big/safe blocks, a face mask and coveralls and going at it while on my back..... I only plan to do this once....

 

Indeed my car was originally "gold". I think it was officially "champagne" or something, but I just never liked that color. It might have looked good out of the showroom, I don't know, but I can't see ever going back to that.

[BuckeyeDemon 211]

were you going to sand blast your car with the suspension/driveline installed?

 

this is a rotisserie. it made working on the underside well worth the time. mine needed a lot of work though. you don't want to put your car on one of these if you aren't dissassembling completely though.

 

[dzahm 10]

If you go to an autobody/paint store they'll have clean up thinner (and several kinds of seam sealer) I think its just a cheaper (meaning not good enough to use for painting) thinner. The tar like substance will likely pop loose during your cleaning efforts leaving only half left. In my case it was easier to remove all (it'll come off in seconds with a putty knife) Then do the scotch brite/laq thinner trick for the residue and the original paint and you'll be very happy. You can then blast/grind only the rusty areas minimizing mess, and hopefully speeding up the process (since your not waiting for a blaster to come, and all the associated mess that you'll spend more time cleaning/blowing out cracks/crevices.) New seam sealer is cheap, easy to apply and most important will seal better than 40+ yr old sealer. I just couldn't see a good way to clean around it, paint and have it look good, and since removeing it was sooo easy, I went for it. (I should mention- I have 2 sandblasters, DAs, and aircraft stripper at my disposal but this was by far the easiest and fastest IF the floors look like yours, and if you didn't want to remove the dash/wiring/etc)