my crusty club wagon

[shortbox97]

New owner to a 94 e350 and have some rust repair to do before going on a road trip 2.5 months from now.

Here is the van. Ive always wanted one of these and finally decided to pull the trigger.

 

[shortbox97]

and pics of the crust I have to fix. Fairly certain there's a leak from either the drip rail or one of the side windows. The oem vinyl flooring was very wet when I bought it and it's clearly been that way for a long time. this was previous a city government van and they did some questionable fixes, such as patching these floors with road signs and stuff. good enough temporarily but I want it to be solid and not leaky, so away we go

the good news is that it's only one side, here's a better shot of the whole floor

 

[shortbox97]

I have all the plastic panels removed as well as the headliner. all those are going back in once the floor is done and headliner is recovered at a shop. this isn't going to be a camper van build so I want a pretty oem appearance inside minus a few things. I'm leaving the front most passenger seat and then turning one of the other ones to be able to sit sideways right behind it. then replace all the plastics/headliner/etc

went to town with the grinder removing rust and cutting out rotten areas

it looks a lot less daunting with everything cut out and cleaned up

 

[shortbox97]

I was planning to just weld in flat sheetmetal but ultimately decided it would be easier to weld in a section of oem floor from another van. so off to the junkyard I went. I found a really nice van in the yard spent a couple hours with my dewalt sawzall cutting it out

for future reference, cutting through the AC lines under the floor WILL cause a very rapid evacuation of freon into the air/your face/all over the interior. good thing I had my gogggles on

balanced this stupid thing on a wheelbarrow for a half-mile transport to the parking lot and then someone offered to help load it. transported it home in an only slightly sketchy manner:

 

[shortbox97]

You can see the oem supports under the floor, i'm working on removing those with a die grinder and a burr bit so I can have a flat sheet to work with. the crossmembers on my van are solid so I don't need the ones from the new floor section. the holes left in this floor piece after removing the crossmembers will be filled with plug welds for a more thorough attachment.

I haven't decided if I want to butt weld or lap weld the whole thing but in the name of "good enough" am likely going to lap weld it. I'm thinking I will trim this piece with enough overlab for a full rib width, weld the full perimeter on top, and tack the bottom where I can reach and fill the rest of the seams on the underside with seam sealer. rust isn't an issue where I live (unless your roof leaks and saturates the carpet) so I won't have to worry about road salt getting into the overlap underneath

 

[shortbox97]

got the new floor piece trimmed up and the van floor prepped. weld thru primer on both

rear of the patch panel was a little squishy when test fitting so I added some angle iron supports to span the gap

got some welding done

 

[86Scotty]

Wow, you are brave. That's not a job for the faint of heart. Nice work so far!

 

[shortbox97]

Wow, you are brave. That's not a job for the faint of heart. Nice work so far!

thanks, it's been a pain in the balls but it's nice to learn a new skill

 

[shortbox97]

floor welding is done. patch right behind the cab:

front corner of passenger side wheel well:

looking from front to rear:

patches at rear of main floor section. the long skinny one is due to me drilling holes in the wrong spot. oops

rear corner of passenger side wheel well

and finally the rear corner near the mount for the oem jack and tools

then I unscrewed the heat shields so I could get under there and scrub/paint the welds. i'll fill all the seams on the underside with seam sealer sometime this week and also treat the welds in the outside of the wheel well

 

[shortbox97]

drivers side drip rail was a mess. only one small spot needs to be welded on the passenger side. all the rust cut/ground out:

plan of attack now is using 14ga steel strips cut the width of the inside of the drip rail. i'm going to weld those in to make up what was ground out and to give a nice straight edge on the outside, against which I will weld strips of 14ga that are cut to match the height of the existing drip rail. these will be welded in kind of an "L" shape, and hoping I can weld it just hot enough on the inside of the angle formed by joining the 2 strips that the heat will penetrate through well enough to not have to seal the bottom with anything but paint. here is a visual of the strips inside the drip rail so you can see the straight edge it gives me:

and a view from the top:

 

[marret]

Plus 1 on Eric’s comment. Well done.

 

[shortbox97]

Got the worst 2 sections of drip rail patched in today. I'll have to seam seal the underside of these sections in addition to filling the drip rail