So after putting heaps of time into getting my bro's ute looking awsome he ran into some trouble with the boys in blue. nice new sticker on the front window which has left us with some real problems.The floor pan from door to door has some real rust hole problems. Im sure this isnt the only rusty ute out there, has anybody fixed up there floor pans before and what would be considered strong enough to pass an inspection? At this stage we are going to cut it all out and start again. Not sure if a bending some sheet metal into shape would be good enough to pass inspection. Ill post some pics of the floor but we dont want this awsome ute never to see the road again, so any advice would definately help our project.

gday shmity,
1.2 sheet metal would be fine, depending on how badly the floors are gone you may be able to patch the sections. saves you cutting out the whole floor pan. if you get some pics up,ill have a look and see what i think.
are the rails gone aswell?
cheers
Dan

Is that what it was defected for matt?

Yer it got done for structual rust and sports steering wheel. And the rails seem to be good it just the floor and sides of tunnel. it pretty bad so i think it easier to take it all out. ill get some pics up this arvo.

I has the same issue with a previous ute I owned - and I agree with Gylezy, 1.2mm sheet metal should be fine to fix it (I went 1.5mm - but there's no method to the choice I made).

I didn't find it too bad cutting out the entire floor pan, but depends on how confident you are with the welder. The rego inspectors said that they look to see that you have rebuilt the structural integrity in the footwell.

I would suggest doing the floor first and the gearbox tunnel second.

Good luck with it!

Not that confident with a welder not bad with a grinder though . But yer i reckon it can be done without to much hassle. only prob is once it goes over pits they'll prob find a million other things.

Few Pics, not the best but sorta shows whats going on.

if u can see if u can take it to Murray bridge. its so easy to get through!

you have a pm shmity

Generally speaking, if you replace a large section, there's meant to be about a 1 inch - 2 inch overlap of the old and new. You seam weld on one side (complete all the way around the plating, and on the other side, you stitch weld - weld 1-2 inches, then a gap of about 5mm, then weld another 1-2 inches (sorry for using metric and imperial in one sentence). The theory is that the seam weld holds the strength, but for safety, if a weld cracks, on a stitch weld, it only travels the length of the stitch, and won't start to crack the next stitch. I've done precisely that in the past, but having said that, plenty of mates of mine have just done a single seam weld, then painted over and if need be a little body deadener over that, and have never had an issue with roadworthy/rego/inspection...

If you can do it 'right' I'd certainly recommend it, since both seats are over the area you have the issue with. I'd go further (and I do this to any car i have as soon as I can, but take a lot longer to get to the bodywork that is actually visible) - strip back the underbody paint, fix the rust, give a quick treatment with phosphoric acid (which basically hits any invisible trace areas of surface rust, then paint with suitable primer and epoxy enamel paint (kill rust is a type of epoxy enamel paint). That will keep it safe and prevent re-occurance (provided you got to the areas that were rusted) for years. It's a much nicer looking finish than tar/body deadener too - so anyone inspecting it from underneath will pass it no probs in the future.

Thanks for advice mate, still not sure what we gonna do, as im sure alot of people know with old cars it not just rust that is a problem when getting a car inspected.