Thread: D1 DRIVER AND PASSENGER FLOOR RUST IDEAS

Did the floors in my 1997 Disco Tdi a few years ago. First attempt at panel work.

Used airtool driven thin cutting disk and jig saw to remove rusted parts - about a dinner plates worth of hole. Rust mostly under the feet of driver and front passenger. Firewall, door columns and floor sills OK. Used the bonnet of an old Mitsubishi Sigma for replacement steel - get a decent set of shears as there is a bit of nibbling to fit replacement steel.

Used oxy first with idea of making a 'nice weld job', but changed to MIG using lots of spot welds and gaps in overlaps bogged in with plenty of fish oil and tar products.

Bit of round bar to bash into Sigma sheet metal to make replacement corrugations before welding into the floor.

To decide on what I would coat the underside with I got several products and painted them onto some cardboard, let them dry, then bent the carboard. Sound deadener products cracked on movement. Stone guard products like 3M and Dynagrip proved very flexible - I keep the cardboard to remind me, and two years later they still flex without cracks. I'm novice at this stuff so others may have better ideas.

Advantage of oxy was if setting fire to old paint etc you could have the hose right handy - not so with MIG! Covered the nylon(?) fuel lines with damp dish cloth. If you do cut the line for what ever reason get some spare line and push fit joiners from ENZed etc (assuming yours is a Tdi300 - not sure what the lines are made of on the petrol vehicles). The hose and joiners are part of my field kit - surprising the number of jags and rub marks on the pipe when you run your finger along.

Next step after the repair was to find out what caused the rust. One - air con bleed nipples in floor were blocked with fluff etc. Two - very small gap in front window sealant. Three - took fenders off to find lots of spare factory holes in the underlying fire wall near door pillar that were not used for anything, but sealed with plastic plugs that were deteriorating/missing and directing water down the inside! I doubt any of the rust was the result of road water beating against the exterior of the floor - all self inflicted by previous owners not acting on the first sign of damp carpet, plus LRover design and fit. Took many hours with the garden hose - run for several minutes to show up the most subtle leaks.

Heaps of info...thanks

Was there a reason you decided not to use a more rust proof steel or was it a price thing as u had a bonnet laying around?

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Bonnet was at hand. And you can't always get exactly what you want in Darwin if you are thinking of doing something fancy.

It's not a concourse vehicle - no one is going to pull up the carpet to score the work Mainly a safety issue stopping the crocs coming through the floor in deep water (and fumes) and matter of comfort by eliminating leaks and smell of wet carpet which attract the cane toads.

I don't know if there would be galvanic issues between welded or contacting sections of stainless and mild steel.

If your floor is still in reasonable nick then the main issue is to find the leaks.

If you wanted ready made sections to replace rusted then there are a few UK companies that cater for the need.

when I did the passenger foot well in my disco I couldn't find a repair section locally so I made one from an old Aopen computer tower I had laying around, it was the same thickness as the steel in the foot well.

Yes, I also have a few old computer tower shells stored away, handy for small flat pieces. So does your foot well run Windows, Mac or Linux?

windows but it hasn't crashed yet