Floorboard Prep and Painting April 08

After the the tub had been raised and the frame removed, there was a lot of room underneath. It became kind of inviting and I had a couple of more weeks before the new frame's arrival, so why get after that dirty underside of the car?

Yup, lots a room under there to enjoy cleaning all the forty years of grime!

This is the drivers side floorboard in before condition. Nothing too horrible here.

And the passenger side, about the same condition. Some baked on transmission oil and road dirt, otherwise in pretty good shape.

 

Here's one of the front main body mount brackets, a little surface rust showing near the sill.

A shot of the rear main body mount bracket. Note that the frame was rubbing middle of the picture towards the top. The rectangular piece of sheet metal and welded 1/4 inch nut visible near center picture are one of four seat track mounts on each side. This was another area of questionable design. There were cracks in three of the eight nut plates, probably caused by a combination of the spot welds and fatigue from the seat rocking. More on this later...

An interesting shot looking back towards the spare tire compartment. The engine hanging upside down is just visible in the background.

 

The floorboard after after treatment with a rust killer. I first cleaned using Simple Green, a brush and a pale of water. Very dirty work! I then went after any rust using a wire wheel on a right angle drill, an assortment of wire brushes, sandpaper, scrappers and a whole lot of elbow grease. 

One of the rear main body brackets after treatment.

And the front.

This is a shot of the rear section of the drivers side. Note the rather large hole center right, this was where one of the rear nut plates once resided. It was so badly cracked that we just removed it. We'll fix it later.

The same area after a coat of primer, like the interior and boot areas, I brushed all of the coatings on (not so easy when lying on your back).

And the front section

From the rear looking forward.

This is a shot of the front section of the passengers side after the first coat of black semi gloss top coat.

And the rear section.

A shot of the rear main body mount bracket.

And the front.