Floor Pan Restoration POR15 Trunk/Floor Pan Kit

T What?

Addicted
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
After a few years of having to store my 87 T under a tarp in Florida, I knew I would have some issues to fix. Now that I have had my house built and my T is in it's permanent stable, I pulled the carpet and went to work. This is how the pan looked after I pulled the rug to assess the damage. The worst area was on the rear passenger pan with the biggest hole being about the circumference of a nickel. The rest of the pan has mostly surface rust with very few small holes that went through.


20160717_181629.jpg



20160717_181635.jpg

Once I vacuumed the majority of the loose rust and dirt out, I spent about 3 hours with my electric drill and a wire wheel cleaning everything up to bare metal in the rusted areas and put a good scratch on the areas that were not rusted.
20161030_192734.jpg
20161030_192752.jpg

Once I got it to this point, I realized that this project would be a good candidate for the POR15 Trunk and Floor Pan Kit. Originally thought about having a friend weld in some fresh metal, but decided I could get a good solid floor with POR15 Kit. So I went ahead an ordered it on Amazon and a few days later I had it and watched a few videos on Youtube of it being applied. Basically just followed the directions and it was painless. Started with the degreaser and then the metal prep. To do this I just applied each using a spray bottle. Once applied I took several 5 gallon buckets of clean water and washed the pan out. I soaked up the water with a shammy and repeated until each phase was cleaned up. I let the floor dry over night with a small fan that I use at the track and got up early the next morning and got started on the POR15.

First I cut out the "power mesh" into patterns that covered all of the rusted metal by at least an inch. There is no real science to this as far as shapes. Just used what was easiest and covered everything that needed it.
20170102_194529.jpg

20170102_194542.jpg
 
Next I used the first phase of POR15 which is silver (great idea to be sure that you overlap it on the second coat). Once thing to note is that you use proper protective equipment such as gloves and long sleeves. This stuff is a bear to get off the skin. I was extra careful and only got a few small spots on my hand. If you are concerned about the integrity of your garage floor you and put duct tape or painters tape on the underside of your floor pan where the holes are. I wasn't overly concerned with this, since my garage floor already has Buick blood on it. So to start you need to essentially dab the first coat into the power mesh to get it to stick and lay flat. Once I did this then the rest of it was just spreading it around evenly with the brush. Here are a few pics of the application of the first coat.
20170102_205247.jpg
20170102_231621 (1).jpg

As you can see the mesh laid down nicely once It was all said and done. It calls for one coat, but i probably did 3 or 4 over the mesh as it would dry. I waited about 6 hours until the base coat was just less than tacky and applied the top coat. This process goes much faster as it spreads so much easier over the base coat as opposed to the base coat over the metal floor pan. Here are a few pics of the top coat going on and finished. I would like to note that my garage temps were around 65 degrees during this application.
20170103_134832.jpg
20170103_140422 (1).jpg
20170103_140459.jpg
 
Once the inside of the pan was completed, I got underneath of the car and did a sealant coating underneath of the treated areas. This will prevent rust from continuing under the mesh. I did not take any pictures of this, because there isn't much to see. I will say that I am very pleased and surprised with how solid this came out.

A few weeks later I pulled the car out into the sun and waited until it got about 75 degrees outside and began the dynomat process. This is not brand name dynomat, but an off brand roll that my uncle had given once he got out of the car restoration world. I had the roll lying around for about 3 years and am very glad that I hung on to it. I will be honest and say that I was a little timid to start this project because I have heard that this isn't the easiest stuff to work with. Right off the bat I will say that I would not attempt this if you have a bad back, knees, neck, or temper. Because I have all of those things and it was a SOB at times. I have a lot of experience in roofing and that paid dividends during the tedious process of cutting and flattening this stuff out. I did this with a carpenters knife and tennis ball (yes a tennis ball). The tennis ball was paramount in getting this stuffing down into the channels of the floor pan, not sure if there is a better tool to use but it worked great for me. So here are the pics of the process and the overall product.
20170114_120429.jpg

20170114_135140.jpg

20170114_135155.jpg
 
Overall this was a project that was worth doing and not that difficult. Much better than paying someone else to do it. If any of you are going to do this, feel free to contact me with any questions. Next I will be putting seats in it from an 06 GTO and dying the plastics black along with new carpet. I will post those pictures once I get it all done. Probably wont be for a while as I am going to Drill Sergeant School in the near future. Thanks for looking.
 
Great write up.good job

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk
 
Excellent write up thank you for,taking the time to do it. We will be doing this to my fathers car soon. His has rust damage less than yours and we are hoping to have it ready for paint sometime this spring

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message, however, a significant number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
 
Thanks guys. Glad to contribute to the forum. Normally never document my projects, but I am going to try to be better about it. Always makes it easier to read someone elses experience first.
 
Thanks guys. Glad to contribute to the forum. Normally never document my projects, but I am going to try to be better about it. Always makes it easier to read someone elses experience first.
During most of the construction of my ride, I was not a board member. Nor did I own a digital camera or smart phone. I regret that I don't have a pictorial record of my work. Some of the stuff I have done, I don't even remember how it got that way.

Even if you don't post up the process, you will find it to be valuable for a million other reasons.
 
IMG_8428.JPG
IMG_8426.JPG
Nice job! I used the same kit and I'm very pleased with the turn out. I also ordered new drain plugs off of eBay. Two small ones for the floorpan and one bigger for the trunk.
 
Top