Vehicle & Technical > Discovery

Boot floor nitemare

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spy:
I have just bought me a new disco (well, new to me and hardly new) and it was cheap but the boot floor is beyond patching!  I have set about removing it to assess and rubbed down and painted what chassis I can see underneath followed by underseal.  The chassis is rock solid.  

The problem is the lip that the repair panel sits on is screwed.  Welding a new lip on looks like a pain in the arse!  I was thinking I could cut the entire lip out then when I buy the repair panel I could weld some say 3mm thick steel strips all the way round over overlaping the edge by about 2" and then weld that to the top of the existing and solid side floor panels.  Does that make sense?  Is it a bad idea?  I suppose I will be creating a big crud trap that would collect mud etc in the long term.  

Any better ideas for fitting it without the lip?  

Cheers,

Mike

Disco_Stu:
Can you cut back to good metal then weld in a strip on one side or is it the lip all the way around?

Did you know that you can use a DIY plate and self tap or rivet it on? The boot floor isn't structural and this, apparently, will satisfy the MOT man.

Stu.

spy:
The lip most of the way round is gone.  I am half tempted to just cut back to good metal paint and underseal and then either rivet a huge plate over the top or maybe even weld one in.  Chequer plate did come to mind but surely welded is better than rivets?  

The problem with this is I would have to raise the seatbelt mountings to reach the higher floor and also pack the crossmembers in some way to make them higher.  

I cant decide whats best.  I have no metal at all (well aprt from some really thin stuff used for small patches on sills etc. ).  Do I buy the boot floor repair peice, do I go buy a huge sheet of steel instead.  Surely the ridged boot floor is stronger though?

redhand:
firstly you can buy the side floor panels if you want to and weld them in. they come with the lip on already. secondly as has been said you can just buy a sheet of steel plate and make your own floor whch you can either weld or PopRivet or even use self tappers.

But you don't need anything near as thick as 3mm steel. The chassis is only made of 2mm thick steel the floor pan is about 1.5mm thick welding thick metal to thin is a pain in the arse and best left to very experienced welders. Try to match what is already there.

bilge rat:
just done mine in blue. the lip was gone most of the way mostly on the o/s. re did theses, replaces the two floor braces. 3mm i think . the panel was from paddocks. not too dear about 50 i think?. bolted along the back and down the sides, riveted the rest with the exseption of the crossmember brackets. theres loads of ways of tackling this job all resulting in the same thing. last one i did i welded everything. cracking job then sold it. watch the tank runs really close at the rear edge. cheers alan.....

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