Continued - Part 9.5
Pffft. So much for hopes & dreams! The whole seatbelt anchor came right out of the panel - with the wiring
still pinched in place between layers of rusty metal, of course. With a bit of careful prying, I managed to get almost all of the wires free except for two (pink & brown).
I'll have to cut the metal anchor apart to get the wires free, so I just set it aside for the time being & moved over to the passenger-side of the car to continue working on the floor there.
(Days later...)
So I've now moved over to the other side of the car to work on the passenger-side floor. In this pic, I'm just beginning to strip the soundproofing/tar stuff from the floor, starting from just in front of the rear seat area's front ledge (at left of photo) & working forward behind the inner seat rail perch, then over between both seat rail perches, then on to the front footwell area. This also includes removing a 6"x12"x1/2" tar pit just in front of the front seat, installed by the previous owner to apparently cover up two 3"x3" areas of rust-perforated (pinholed) floor metal near the central drain hole.
Moving up to the front footwell, I remove the smaller galvanized metal cover-panel installed there by the previous owner, & find a rusted-out area similar to what I found on the driver-side floor:
Like before, the "perceived" rust damage was very different when comparing the view from the underside of the car looking up (photo from an earlier post) to the view from inside the car looking down:
Using simple hand tools (hammer, chisel/paint scraper, screwdriver & pliers) I started in on removing the most-damaged metal here - mainly to see what was underneath! It actually cleaned up quite well, though I obviously have to finish cutting out the rest of the bad metal just fore & aft of this area.
It's also a good opportunity to verify the condition of the metal backing plate with 2 captive nuts that the front swaybar inner pivot/saddle bolts onto (from under the car) - this backing plate is clearly visible here down in the little "trough" in the center of the photo. If this plate & nuts were
really rusty, then there'd be the possibility of either the nuts breaking loose from the plate (& thus spinning uselessly), or the bolts seizing onto/within the nuts & shearing off, when later trying to remove those 2 bolts to install new saddle bushings on the swaybar pivots. That would be a
real bummer (btdt), as the only way to really remedy either of those issues would be to cut out the floor metal above to gain access to the plate/nuts (to fix them). Seeing as how I already have that metal above them technically "removed" for now, I'll go ahead & soak the nuts/bolts in PB Blaster for a few days to ensure the bolts can be backed out (removed) nice & easy. If so, I'll then put a couple new tack-welds on each nut to ensure they're secured to the backing plate for good, & a few more securing the plate to the sheetmetal it's sitting on.
Preventive maintenance.
Similar to what's needed in this spot on the driver-side floor, I'll likely install a single repair panel here, as shown by the green outline:
Both floors now scraped free of all soundproofing & tar spots. Note the gaping hole in the driver-side inner rocker where seatbelt anchor
used to be...
(To be continued...)
