Rusted floor. How bad is it?

[orwell84]

It should last awhile. Fiberglass is very durable especially when painted from both sides.

I am at the stage where I try to “do it right” to the best of my ability. It takes a lot of time and ends up keeping my bus off the road for longer than expected. I have been at this a long time and can weld pretty decently.

Some of my more functional repairs are still holding up after decades. The important thing is to enjoy your bus. Ripping it to bits and finding yourself in over your head is a sure way to end up hating the whole experience. Good luck with your project.

[alexbeatle]

So after 3 weeks of ground shipping FedEx lost my Mastercoat package somewhere close tomy home 🙁. Was really looking forward to it. Luckily, Mastercoat was very understanding and gave a full refund. Will definetly try your products for the next job.

Anyways. With the change of strategy, given that I need to treat rust on the floor - no UV exposure - I went ahead with POR15 which I was able to just go and pickup 5mins away from me.

I did:
0. Clean and degrease
1. Two coats of POR15
2. Patched wholes with the fiberglass cloth
3. Another coat of POR15
4. Coat of Rust-Oleum primer

Now the floor is all white due to primer. Can still see patches, but I will have an insolation layer go on top - plywood + vinyl mat - so shouldn't see them imperfections.

Hopefully this will keep the rust out for a year or two once I'm up with my welding game to redo the entire floor.

Thanks for all of the replies to guide me through this.

[orwell84]

It's really hard to evaluate pitted areas from photos. Pitting might look bad, but the metal may still be quite strong. If you can push on it with a screwdriver and it doesn't go through or deform the metal, you're good. I have sandblasted pitted areas clean on the outside of the bus. They looked bad, but the metal was still strong. I used a high build epoxy primer to fill the pits before painting and you can't even see them anymore. Cargo floors are even thicker than the exterior bodywork.

You will be surprised how much better the floor looks when it is painted. If you have spots that fail the screwdriver test you might want to consider welding them up or patching or having a friend do it. Mark those spots with a sharpie first. if you just want to get it on the road and not have holes in your floor, you can patch with sheet metal, screws or pop rivets, seam seal and paint. Paint and seal it from the bottom too. I rolled in my bus a long time this way and the repairs held up. Eventually I learned to weld and got a mig welder. I miss those days where I just riveted and kept rolling.\

Those pitted areas look worse to you because you probably have been staring at them for a long time, toiling away with your wire brush and that's all you see..each one as big as a basketball.

[cmonSTART]

[orwell84]

When I did my cab floor, I I had to patch a small section. For the rest, I filled small holes with MiG welding and ground them down. I also added metal with welding to deeply pitted areas but it requires a light touch. I didn’t sandblast because I was sick of getting sand out of my bus. Master series will prevent the pitted areas from rusting just as well without sandblasting.

[danfromsyr]

it's 'cute' what you california guys think is 'rust'.

really frikkin cute..

[Abscate]

[alexbeatle]

[Lil Lulu]

How’s it look from the bottom?

Floors in both buses looked similar to yours. I patched and patched and then Masterseries metal prep (phosphoric) and Masterseries silver. Then paint. All coatings were applied within a 24 hr period to take advantage of the chemical bond.

I really feel confident that I have stemmed the rust forever if I take care of it. Masterseries is a hell of product.

Looks like you have a date with a MIG. I used metal from other VW vehicles. Sandblasting takes a whole new skill set and you’ll never get all the sand out.
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'65 Beetle "Lil' Lulu"- Ruby Red
1600 stock from '71 bus

'72 Deluxe - Niagara Blue w/pastelwiess Camper Special 2L dual 40 Webers 002

'74 Hightop Weekender "Dixie" 1800 34 Del singles

[alexbeatle]

Maybe I'm a noobie at this, but the more I brush off, the worse it looks. Or is it about the time to apply POR15?

Looking into investing into sanbluster

[alexbeatle]

[orwell84]

[busdaddy]

Sounds like it's ready for some Ospho, Rust mort or phosphoric acid. Once that's had a day to react and is rinsed off move on with the Rustoleum.
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[alexbeatle]

So using a wireblush I was able to get rid of the loose rust parts and got some portions to shine. But some, in the centre of the rust sports remain black. Am I not done brushing or this is as far as it goes?

[skills@eurocarsplus]

this is a rusted floor

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9411897#9411897
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[jlrftype7]

[HoboBus]

As for how bad it is... doesn't look too bad to me.

Look at some photos in the gallery, some guys can put a basketball through their floor when they bought their bus.

Everybody's different--- I like to wire wheel everything, wire wheel on a hand drill. Even dig a good screwdriver in to the rust to try to scrape it all.

Then I like the brush-on rust converter. Even Wal-Mart sells it. After that use a good brush-on rustoleum.

As for holes, welded patches are good if you have the capability. If not, screwed in covering patches are ok. I actually like screwed in things rather than pop rivets because you can remove the patch to retreat if needed. I've even used nuts and bolts with big washers to fill in holes.

If its not structural, its just the floor. Things don't always have to be perfect.

As others said, patch it up and get camping.

Good luck
Hobo
_________________
Salt air it ain't thin, it'll stick right to your skin,
it'll make you feel fine. Makes you feel fine.
And I wanna be there. -- Jimmy Buffett

Just a beach-oriented camping Hobo with a bus.

[Abscate]

If you have to ask.....

Treat and paint, install gear, and go camping.
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[alexbeatle]

[alexbeatle]