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Rotten boot floor - what are the options?


Jon White

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The boot floor of my rangie is rotten - what are the options for repair??

Cant find anyone offering rangie boot floors as a repair section - would a disco one do??

If not then what? Mine is a 1995 classic with a steel floor not an ally one!

Also what crossmembers should there be under the floor?? Theres so little of mine left its had to tell! I need to do the rear body x-member aswell so i might aswell do a proper job!

I climbed in the boot to try and undo the seat belt mounts and put my knee through the floor!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Jon

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Sounds horribly familiar.

I've just replaced my rear crossmember and will be replacing the boot floor soon.

A Disco floor fits width wise but is about 120mm too short. The fuel pump access hole isn't exactly in the right place but it's near enough. I've fitted an extra crossmember at the rear which will support the end of the Disco floor and enable a strip of 18g sheet to be welded in to fill the gap. If I have the time I may even try and put a few swage lines in it to aid rigidity. You may be able to salvage such a strip from the old floor. Shame I didn't think of this before I threw my old floor in the local skip!

The cross members in the Rangie are approx central to the wheelarch and about 18" (oops...450mm) behind it. They sit on rubber topped supports welded to the chassis...obvious when you get the floor out. I made up new crossmembers from rectangular section steel but pattern ones are available. A good tip is to get a spot weld drill bit, around £6 from motor factors or maybe cheaper on eblag. There are a LOT of spot welds in a Rangie floor.

While you've got the floor out it's a good idea to look at rear brake pipes, fuel pipes etc. they are much easier to replace from above than crawling around underneath. Oh and check for rust at the chassis ends, around the bump stops and at the ends of the big round crossmember, especially where the fuel pipes make a lovely little rust trap...ask me how I know.

Good luck!

Bob :)

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As far as I know the only option for a new replacement that will fit without modification is a corrugated ally sheet. The replacement panel for the floor isn't made any more. I got mine from a land rover breakers, supposedly virtually new when the car it came from was scrapped (rubbish - it was quite badly corroded round some of the rivets). Given that it really is just a sheet of corrugated alloy I'd find somewhere to buy a new one, if the price is reasonable (I paid £15 for the second hand one, IIRC, suspect new sheet would be a good bit more).

The ally sheets don't have a fuel pump access hole, but it's not too hard to sort this out with the aid of a jigsaw. For a nice tidy job you want a rubber seal to go under the front edge of the sheet and either a chrome trim or rubber seal/trim for the back edge. If you go down the ally sheet route drop me a line - I've got the seal and I think a chrome trim kicking around which you can have for P&P.

As to whether an extended disco floor or an ally sheet will result in a tidier finished job, I don't know. Probably depends on your fabrication skills - I don't weld so the ally sheet seemed far more straightforward for me.

Oh, and to second what Rustyrangie says - get a proper spot weld drill and don't underestimate how long it takes to drill them all out - took me several evenings (would have been less if I'd started out with the proper drill).

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