My new to me balck and parchment 1995rrc was a great great deal due to small rust holes that scared off the posh crowd making it very affordable for me. This is not my first or last RRC. 100k on the engine and it runs better than any 3.9 I have driven, maybe due to the brand new $$$ exhaust, ypipe and 02 sensors the PO had just installed - and then took a huge loss on when I bought it.. Tailgate has been replaced but holes, one each the size of a tea saucer in both the front floorboards right along the sidewalls are making me wonder if I should try to remove body panels and cut and weld or should I just POR it and mesh and bondo and cut a few stop signs to fit and drop them in and JB weld them down and call it done.. I dont give a shit about looks, just want to stop the rust in its tracks where ever I see it on the undercarriage and under the hood along the seems. Oh and stop the water from coming in and soaking my carpet. and for the haters why yes the EAS is perfect now that it has been reset to top height with my laptop for running 33s. Big springs and tires and HD etc can wait until the wee'uns start school and I can bank all that daycare cash..

Anyone have a write-up to any rover rust fix projects to get me motivated to do it right ? ? Is POR still the best spray on rust killer ?

The floor panels can be a real bitch. I had an 88 where the floor panels were so rusty they actually seperated from the top flange of the sill structure. The rust had also started to go up the inside of the kick panels too. Bloody nightmare. I half repaired it, then got sick of it and sold it for parts. Shame really as it was fairly low mileage.

I would imagine that it is going to be more work than you think to sort. You need to remove the carpets and anything else that is in the way and have a good look before you can really decide how to repair it.

If its a nice one, it would be a shame to bodge it. I would strip it a bit and do it as properly as you can.

Good luck.

Pete

I've patched more Range Rover floors than I care to admit. The nightmares are finally going away, just in time for a Disco to be delivered early next month for a fairly intensive cut, chop, patch, undercoat project.

It's never easy. You can't STOP the rust (if you could, life on earth as we know it would cease), you can slow it way down though.

While it can begin to resemble Frankenstein, cutting strips of suitably shaped steel, welding them in and continuing is a fairly good way to do it if you don't have a brake. Once I got a brake, I was able to make one-piece patch panels and the quality, ease of fitting and results all improved. Surprisingly Harbor Freight has a nice 18" sheetmetal brake that is just barely capable of bending steel of the thickness I prefer to use for this project. To try to duplicate the curved contour of the footwell, I use a big piece of round stock and bash the sheetmetal around it. I've gotten pretty good at "rolling" the bottom curve with a big-ass piece of steel out of an injection molding set-up.

If you're not already aware, MIG welding DOES NOT like welding to rusty surfaces. Attempting to do so will end up with a much larger area involved. Cut out all of the rust and then take some more. If this isn't attractive to you, brazing with a small oxy-acet torch might be more appropriate as the lower temps won't accelerate the oxidation as much as MIG welding. I learned this the hard way repairing perforated diff covers!

Use this info as you wish, but when I was confronted with terminal rot in my trail rig, I started looking for a rust free body to transplant the drivetrain into. In a very surprising turn of events, I ended up with two fairly rust free RRCs and a completely rust free Discovery body (it came out the Atlanta area). Might be something to think of. I only have so much time to spend wrenching on my own rigs and I have to make the most of it. I'd rather spend my time working on the engine and suspension than patching the framework that holds it all together.

Right now, I am trying to repair the damage done to a Defender by previous attempts at patching that basically were little more than pieces of deck plate bolted over the rust holes. You guessed it, the rust holes have grown and the patches are only held in by habit. Sadly, replacement bodies for Defenders are not as common as RRCs and Discos from drier climes.

With respect to POR-15, I have found a product that is very similar, sold by former POR-15 folks that has impressed me so far. I'll try to look at the can and get some info for you. At $35/qt, it's not cheap, but Boy Howdy is it good!

After patching and painting it put rust proofing oil all over the floor before replacing the carpet.

i like Chassis Saver. comes down to personal choice, but it sticks like none other. you could just about paint it over dirt. gets hard enough that you can't really mark it with your fingernail, but it's really flexible. you can paint it on a piece of sheet metal bend it back and forth and the stuff won't crack until the sheet metal is about to break. they make it in a flat and gloss finish. gloss washes off easier. you can thin it down and spray it too.

There is an old cookie sheet which is the new floorboard in my 1995 LWB. I did not even rivet it on. Hole is really big too after I cut away all the rust. Biggest thing you can do is keep water out and junk the foam under the carpet.

Thanks for all the feedback guys.. I finally got the rust and paint all sanded off and the holes are not that bad. I will mesh and bondo and paint and I think put some stick on rubber sound proofing panels on the inside floors and put old license plates and rooftar on the outside of the footwells where the spray hits. I put 245 size tires back on, bigger was pointless for now. I am up to getting 12mpg/ 17mpg.

There is an old cookie sheet which is the new floorboard in my 1995 LWB. I did not even rivet it on. Hole is really big too after I cut away all the rust. Biggest thing you can do is keep water out and junk the foam under the carpet.

or just ditch all the carpet as well!