The time had come to start fixing a number of rust issues on the Dart.
First up was the passenger-side floorboard.
The floorboard was already rusted and in bad shape when I bought the car some 7 years ago already, but I was able to ‘postpone’ repair by coating the floor with a rubbercoating.
Eventually the rust had progressed to rust-with-holes and was now serious enough to warrant a repair.
After poking away at the floor and grinding away most of the bad stuff, I was able to fab a new floor from a piece of sheetmetal.
During the removal of the old floor I was also able to place some reinforment welds were the frame-rails connects to the outrigger bracket and some 3 layers of metal all came together.
After welding the new floorpiece to the remaining floor board I noticed some more bad things going on in that area.
Just above the seam where the floorboard connects to the firewall, I noticed first one, but later 2 large tears in the metal, both starting from the seam. Also the seam itself appeared to have opened up slightly at the factory spot welds as there was room in between them.
The two large 3″ tears in the firewall sheetmetal were welded and the seam received some welds as well from the inside to restore its support structure and aid in strength in the area, which is obviously a highly stressed area.
I plan to reweld the entire seam from left to right on the inside to help aid strength in the car’s body.
