Interior Floor Board & Trunk Floor Board Cleanup I Did This Summer

[Jim AAR]

So I was fixing an electrical issue I was having with my Tail Lights & Road Lamps this summer and I decided to take the Bucket Seats out so it was easier to work under the dash.
Took them out and pulled the carpet back on the Driver's side and much to my dismay, I found that I had sustained some water leakage over the years since I had done a partial restoration.

The Partial Restoration in the 80's included the following:
1) Pulled the Motor, Rebuilt and painted it,
2) Pulled the Clutch & Trans and freshened it up (mostly just replaced the seals & gaskets, everything else was OK but I probably should have replaced the synchros because it sometimes doesn't engage into 3rd unless I make sure I slam it in pretty hard
3) Removed the Fenders, Grill, Headlights & Pots, Front Valance & Grill Panel, all the shields , etc.
4) Removed the Upper Control Arms & replaced the Bushings & Upper Ball Joints
5) Removed all the Front End except for the Lower Control Arms & Steering Box & Shaft
6) Sandblasted the Engine Compartment & K-Member & repaired the typical rusted sections (behind the Hinges, under the Battery Tray, Cowl Drains on the ends behind the fenders) cutting out and replacing the metal
7) Hand stripped the paint, there were 3 layers and when I got down to the bare metal, you could still see where the stripes were applied
Repaired the typical rusted sheet metal (tops of the Fenders by the Hinges, small spots on the bottom of the Fenders, rear Quarter Panel Lips and behind the wheels, rear Tail Panel at the Trunk Floor) cutting out and replacing the metal
9) The Roof, Rockers, Doors, Window Wells, Dutchman & Trunk Gutters had no rust thankfully
10) Painted the Engine Compartment in Acrylic Enamel (B7), painted the Exterior in (B7) but I let my buddy (The Bodyman/Painter) talk me into painting it in lacquer, looks great and still shines like crazy but as with most lacquers they usually start to crack when they age and it has been about 32 years since it was painted, so it has some cracking on the Front Fenders and Rear Quarters
11) Wire wheeled the entire underside of the car and painted it in Tremclad Black Rust Paint (thats what everyone was using in the early 80's as nobody did rotisserrie restorations back then)
12) Never removed the Dash or Differential, but replaced the Sway Arm Linkage & Bushings (Front & Back) & replaced the Front & Rear Shocks
13) Removed all the Interior Panels and cleaned & painted them as they were a little faded & I had to replace the Drivers Side Front Panel as it was scratched pretty bad by the previous owners dog and I could only find a Black one so it would have never matched the color of the other Original Panels (Interior Paint sucked in the 80's and it is now flaking off in most places) so I need to pressure wash and remove the old paint from them and repaint them all, what a pain that is going to be as I did that on the Kick Panels already and some of it stuck to good so I had to use Acetone to clean the stubborn spots where it decided to stick really well.

Sorry the only pics that I have of the partial restoration from then are only photos and there aren't very many of them. No Digital devices back then.

Now back to my unexpected summer project, I had some rust on the Driver's side floor board which was not there when I replaced the carpet in the early 80's so I decided to gut the interior:
1) Cleaned it all up with a wire wheel & grinder where there was rust. Burned through on about 8 spots on the Drivers Front Foot Well where the ribs are and a couple spots on the Passenger Front Foot Well. There was NO Rust anywhere else on the Interior Floorboards.
2) Removed all of the Black Tar like Seam sealant as it was mostly all letting loose anyways (the metal was like brand new underneath it, so it really did it's job because I think it has a lot more of a Petroleum base to it than the White rubbery sealant)
3) Removed the rest of the White Seam Sealant which was harder to remove and there was surface rust under some of it, go figure.
4) Since I don't have a welder and couldn't afford to buy one at this time, I just riveted in some steel patches with seam sealer squished in between, on top and underneath the floor boards as a temporary fix for now. car never sees rain or snow anyways, so it's good enough for now until I have the time and funds to do a full restoration, IE. dismantle the complete car and sandblast and fix any of the rust that has recurred, the good thing is I know there won't be very much replacing to do only patching, I won't need to replace any full panels anywhere, it doesn't require it as I know where the rust was previously as it was stripped to bare metal before and nothing has re-appeared.
5) At this point, I decided after doing this much, I might as well wire wheel & grind where there was some rust on the Trunk Floor boards at the same time, burned through in the typical spots on the right and left sides where the ribs and seals are where the rear Muffler Brackets would normally go on a dual exhaust car. But when they made the AAR's there were already pre-drilled holes there for the brackets which they never used and they never sealed any of the holes, pretty sure that's why there was rust there. I mean how hard would it have been to put some rubber plugs in there.
5) Removed all the White Seam Sealant from the Trunk as well and resealed all of the seams on the entire floor board from front to back.
6) Primed it all in black primer for now so it will be sealed and easy to remove when I do a full restoration and blast it all.

I do have pics for the work I did this summer, I'll start them from beginning to end.

[Jim AAR]

More pics

[Jim AAR]

More pics

[Jim AAR]

More pics

I ended up pulling the Heater Box and cleaning up behind it as well. The Heater box just needed a good cleaning and all the Date Codes & Part Number was still in really good shape. i do need to get all new foam for it though. I just made my own foam from adhesive backed black foam sheets for now.

There is a small piece that is broken off on the bottom air duct that I will need to repair in the future as well. It is a small spot so I may just sand it down straight and it will be hardly noticeable, it's less than a 1/2 inch broken off.

[Jim AAR]

More pics

Where it looks like the number 22 was actually in an Orange (paint or chalk) and the blue paint was just flaking off of it and it was just clean metal underneath it..

[Jim AAR]

More pics

[Jim AAR]

More pics

[Jim AAR]

Last pic...

Like I said before these floor board patches are only temporary as I don't know when I will be able to replace the metal and I wanted to keep it from rusting any further and to keep any water out until then as I still want to keep driving it. Could be next year but it could also be 5 years until I have the time and money to do it right. Because when I do it, I don't want it to be a 5 year project

But at least I can still enjoy it until then.

[Hotiron]

Hey Jim, really like the project.  I am working on a similar restore with a 70 cuda.  I also had acrylic paint in 99 put on and there is places that are cracking out some due to body work others due to paint.  Are you taking the whole thing back to metal and starting again?  I am thinking it would give me a shorter path to the end if I address the specific places and not do all the body work again. 

[RUNCHARGER]

Tedious, dirty job but a really good idea to save deterioration from happening.

[Jim AAR]

Hey Jim, really like the project.  I am working on a similar restore with a 70 cuda.  I also had acrylic paint in 99 put on and there is places that are cracking out some due to body work others due to paint.  Are you taking the whole thing back to metal and starting again?  I am thinking it would give me a shorter path to the end if I address the specific places and not do all the body work again.

Because the exterior paint is done in Lacquer, I have no choice but to take it back to metal unless I redo it in Lacquer again (which I don't know if I want to do considering the quality of the new paints, the pro to Lacquer is I can do it at home without a spray booth and don't have to sand between coats) as you can't put the new Acrylic paints on top of Lacquer as far as I know. I know where all of the bodywork was done and it was done so long ago that I prefer taking it right down to metal and then blasting and applying Epoxy Primer to the entire shell and doing it once and hopefully never having to do it again.

Since yours is in Acrylic already, if it was mine I would just sand it all down and fix what you need to fix and repaint it. 

[Jim AAR]

Tedious, dirty job but a really good idea to save deterioration from happening.

Yep, clean it up and stop the deterioration until I am ready to do it all again.