Fiat Abarth 1300/124 - an extensive restoration project.

myredracer

True Classic
This isn't an ordinary Fiat restoration. First, it's an Abarth model that was based on a standard 850 coupe body with various mods done by Abarth. Some say less than 300 were made. Secondly, when I got it, it was missing numerous original Abarth parts but I eventually found some ebay. Lastly, the body was so rusty it was impossible to restore it. The car came from the eastern US and had seen a hard life. It had a lot of really bad body repair work done to it including copious amounts of fiberglass and bondo and lots of metal laid over rusty metal and tack welded in place. It had more recently installed rocker panels that were just pop-riveted on and even the inside of the inner rockers had a THICK layer of fiberglass (who does that??).

The model designation for the 1300/124 is a bit awkward and just doesn't roll off the tongue very well. The emblems on the exterior say "1300". But there was also a 100% all-Abarth sports racing car that was designated "1300".

I'll be creating a build thread on the rear engine forum one of these days when I'm not spending all my time working on the car. This is too give a basic idea what's happening in my workshop these days. My 600 Abarth resto-mod project is on hold at the moment awaiting undercoating and paint when the weather is warm enough.

I knew in the beginning that the body needed very extensive rust repair. I had also bought two stock 850 coupe bodies that were pretty much stripped down to suspension only with the thought in mind that I might use them for donor sheet metal. I brought one car back from CA in the bed of a pickup truck (fun road trip) and the other was a local car that *looked* to be in great shape. A close assessment of the 1300/124 a few months ago showed that just about all sheet metal from the roof down needed replacement or some kind of work. I then decided to use one of the "donor" cars as the basis for a restoration by either moving some of the original modified Abarth pieces onto the new body or replicating the Abarth mods. Fortunately there was enough of the original body and body mods to go by. It came without the original rear engine panel and I have yet to figure out exactly how Abarth modified the stock ones. I'm not going to do anything to the donor body unless it is as exact as I can make it how Abarth did.

The main change Abarth made to these models was to install a 124 pushrod engine and boring it to 1280cc. There wasn't much else done to the engines and they may or may not have had larger valves and hotter cam. A radiator was installed in the front trunk area and much of the sheet metal was cut away to accomodate it. Alloy coolant pipes were run under the floor. The rear engine panel was modified to clear the engine pulleys and the sheet metal between the 850 engine and fuel tank was cut away. There were many other mods as well such as different gearing in the transaxle, a special bellhousing, Abarth gauges, front grille, badging, lowered suspension and a few others. Some small details are hard to see like the rivnuts that were used for coolant pipe clamps for example. The engine that came with the car was a non-original later 124 1438cc with an incorrect Weber 40DCOE carb. I would dearly love to find an original block.

The first photo is what my car would have originally looked like. This is actually a car that belongs to a forum member that occasionally posts here. The 2nd photo is what it looked like in our driveway 10+ years ago. It *might * look sorta okay, but it wasn't. The 3rd photo is what it now looks like after recently dismembering the body. The right A-pillar was so rusty the door basically fell off and no cutting was needed. I was very careful not to damage anything that might have been modified by Abarth. I reduced the floor pan to a single sheet of metal - 4th photo. It has some humps created at the forward end for coolant pipe clearance that I'll need to replicate.

The 5th photo of the blue coupe will become the 1300/124. For the most part the body is in pretty good shape. Rusted areas needing repair include the floor, lower part of the front nose, a hole in one rocker and for some odd reason, some bad rust spots around the windshield and rear window under the rubber seals (seals were removed at one time and not correctly sealed??). There is also some collision damage to fix at the front left fender and left rear quarter panel. The 5th photo shows what the rear left quarter panel looked like. Just a little primer... And then the last photo shows what the panel was really like under the primer, paint & lots of bondo. Someone beat the sn*t out of it to get it kinda where the metal should be then went to town with bondo. So now that area really needs some work...

BTW, personally I like doing body work. Especially the metal working phase. It's very challenging and it's satisfying when you eventually figure out how to do it. It seems like there's always something new to learn and like there's a new challenge every day. Body restoration work is tedious, it's exacting and it can get complicated. There's no easy way out and there's no standard out-of-the-book way to approach it, especially on an older car and especially when you can no longer buy some body panels. Mig welding sheet metal is a b*tch. Some sheet metal is as thin as 24 gauge and it's flippin' difficult to weld without blowing holes through it or warping it. As you find rusty metal as you go through a body, it's simply gotta come out and get replaced. Sometimes it seems never ending. Thank gawd for the internet and youtube vids that we have today!

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Wow, may the Force be with you. As an aside, and understand I have no personal feelings one way or the other, how will the rebodied car be presented? Would you move over all the vin stuff and call it a real Abarth 1300? It's not a tribute as you are going to painful detail to make it the real thing.
 
Wow, may the Force be with you. As an aside, and understand I have no personal feelings one way or the other, how will the rebodied car be presented? Would you move over all the vin stuff and call it a real Abarth 1300? It's not a tribute as you are going to painful detail to make it the real thing.
Good question! I thought about that for a long time. Years in fact. I'm transferring over part of the sheet metal with the VIN number on it. Fiat had the VIN on the firewall but since Abarth cut that away, Abarth re-stamped it on the left wall of the engine compartment below the fuel filler. At the end of the day, I came to the conclusion the end product is basically the same thing. I could have painstakingly replaced 90 percent or more of the sheet metal on the original body using replacement and donor sheet metal or I could have moved over all the Abarth modified pieces and replicate them where needed. Using a complete donor body will look more original in the end IMO. For example, if a person were to extensively replace sheet metal everywhere, you'd never be able to replicate the original factory spot welds.

I think at the end of the day, the car is essentially still an Abarth as Abarth would have made it. I have seen photos of at least one supposedly original 1300/124 that was restored but some things are clearly not Abarth-original. Unlike say the 600s, it's pretty difficult, if not impossible to make an accurate/correct replica of a 1300/124. There are hundreds, if not thousands of 600s out there being pawned off as "Abarths", even in books on Abarths. I don't plan to hide the fact of the extensive work that my car wisure if there's a special category at concourse events for that. Then there are some rare classic/vintage cars that are over-restored and nothing like the factory would have done.

Sometimes you hear in the high-end classic car world of valuable and rare exotic cars being "rebodied". Not sure if there's a special category at concourse events for that. Then there are some rare classic/vintage cars that are over-restored and nothing like the factory would have done.

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Yesterday I was focusing on the left rear quarter panel area. The beat up, messed up panel is getting replaced with a fairly decent section off one of the donor cars. The area within the red line is what needed to go. The 2nd photo shows the old metal cut away. I was careful to make the straight cuts as clean and straight as possible. I made rounded corners at the turns. Sharp corners should always be avoided where possible to minimize distortion from welding.

A previous owner had hacked into the piece at the bottom of the quarter panel and inner wall of the engine compartment so that had to be addressed. The was also some rust on the lower part of the inner wall to deal with. The 5th photo shows repair work almost finished on the inner wall in area marked in red. The yellow line shows where I added reinforcement pieces for the engine support cradle. The bushings that go inside the fore-aft reinforcing member are off the 1300/124. More on this another day.

The underside of the quarter panel has a flat piece with a couple of dimples and a flap (which could have been to drain the quarter panel at the factory when painted or possibly to drain any water that gets in there?). At first I thought I would just cut off a couple of the dimples and a flap off a floor from the donor cars. I use a min. of 22 ga. for new sheet metal and the complete bottom piece is made from only 24 ga. I tried to weld a dimple onto 22 gauge at first, but it just wasn't working out and the dimple got warped and the welding was too messy for my liking. Also, welding up all the holes in the original thin metal from drilling out the spot welds would have been tedious and difficult. It was then that I decided there had to be a better way...

I looked around the garage and found an iron pipe fitting and a piston pin that would work to make the dimples in new 22 gauge metal. I rounded off the inner edge of one end of the pipe fitting and also the end of the piston pin. A few hard whacks with a 3 lb hammer and voila, the dimples look pretty close to the originals. The flap would have originally been made by machine. I simply cut out a copy of the opening in the flat piece, made a flap in dimensions to match the original and then welded the flap on. Looks dang close to the original piece and not distinguishable, especially after painting & undercoating anyway but who'd be looking down there? The last photo shows the piece in place where it will go. Gets spot-welded onto the quarter panel first, then the quarter panel goes on and then the piece gets spot-welded onto the inner wheel well and inner engine compartment wall. It's like working on a Meccano set, it goes together in a certain order.

Check back in a few months, or maybe years, on the rear-engine forum to see how the car turns out, lol. :)

Looks like the photo posting didn't turn out quite right. Haven't got this forum photo posting quite figured out yet.

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Yesterday I was focusing on the left rear quarter panel area. The beat up, messed up panel is getting replaced with a fairly decent section off one of the donor cars. The area within the red line is what needed to go. The 2nd photo shows the old metal cut away. I was careful to make the straight cuts as clean and straight as possible. I made rounded corners at the turns. Sharp corners should always be avoided where possible to minimize distortion from welding.

A previous owner had hacked into the piece at the bottom of the quarter panel and inner wall of the engine compartment so that had to be addressed. The was also some rust on the lower part of the inner wall to deal with. The 5th photo shows repair work almost finished on the inner wall in area marked in red. The yellow line shows where I added reinforcement pieces for the engine support cradle. The bushings that go inside the fore-aft reinforcing member are off the 1300/124. More on this another day.

The underside of the quarter panel has a flat piece with a couple of dimples and a flap (which could have been to drain the quarter panel at the factory when painted or possibly to drain any water that gets in there?). At first I thought I would just cut off a couple of the dimples and a flap off a floor from the donor cars. I use a min. of 22 ga. for new sheet metal and the complete bottom piece is made from only 24 ga. I tried to weld a dimple onto 22 gauge at first, but it just wasn't working out and the dimple got warped and the welding was too messy for my liking. It was then that I decided there had to be a better way...
 
FWIW, I forgot to mention the 1300/124 is a '66, based on the series 1 850 coupes. It's one of the earlier ones made.

The later series 1 cars and the series 2 cars had a slight mod to the cooling setup and later on, the series 2 cars had a different front grille and relocated badging on the rear engine panel due to the quad tail lights.
 
FWIW, I forgot to mention the 1300/124 is a '66, based on the series 1 850 coupes. It's one of the earlier ones made.

The later series 1 cars and the series 2 cars had a slight mod to the cooling setup and later on, the series 2 cars had a different front grille and relocated badging on the rear engine panel due to the quad tail lights.
I think I know someone who has a car like this. Do you know Lou in Bloomington, IL?
 
Wow what an undertaking! That said it certainly looks like you are going about it with the goal of having a "proper" finished product. As relates to the VIN #'s and will it be a "real" Abarth when done I say YES! Years ago (pre 1972) Abarth gave license to individual shops to "transform" cars originally sold as FIATS to Abarth spec cars with a new ABARTH ID and "history." Al Cosentino (FAZA = Fiat Abarth Zagato Allemano) was one such shop. Merkel Weis once stated in regard to this issue: "this is Grandpa's ax. The handle has been replaced twice and the head once, but it's Grandpa's ax." Hope I got most of that quote close...
 
This is all intellectual at my end but I suppose you could argue that an original body with 70% of it's original sheet metal removed is no more original than a "rebody" like you are doing. I think, as you hinted at, that when it came time to sell the car you give full disclosure then there are no potential problems from your end.

Keep on truckin….er...welding.
 
I'm transferring over part of the sheet metal with the VIN number on it. Fiat had the VIN on the firewall but since Abarth cut that away, Abarth re-stamped it on the left wall of the engine compartment below the fuel filler.

I don't think I've ever seen this - do you have a photo of this "Abarth re-stamping"? Or are you talking about something like this?:

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(This is the factory Fiat stamping on the left inner fender wall of early 850's, which your 1324 should have. The alloy VIN tag is normally mounted above the stamping, as in my photo).
 
The underside of the quarter panel has a flat piece with a couple of dimples and a flap (which could have been to drain the quarter panel at the factory when painted or possibly to drain any water that gets in there?).

Yes, the flap is a factory drain for the rear quarter panel area. All 850 models have these drain flaps here, though the Spider/Racer models have a single large dimple in the center of the quarter panel "floor" piece, with the drain flap in the center of the dimple - much more efficient for draining water without creating a water (rust) trap. I can't remember what the Sedan flaps/dimples look like...probably like the Coupe?

At first I thought I would just cut off a couple of the dimples and a flap off a floor from the donor cars. I use a min. of 22 ga. for new sheet metal and the complete bottom piece is made from only 24 ga. I tried to weld a dimple onto 22 gauge at first, but it just wasn't working out and the dimple got warped and the welding was too messy for my liking. It was then that I decided there had to be a better way...

On a Spider panel I reworked once before, I used a simple hydraulic press & 2 large different-sized impact sockets to re-create the dimple. Worked great! ;)
 
Yes, the flap is a factory drain for the rear quarter panel area. All 850 models have these drain flaps here, though the Spider/Racer models have a single large dimple in the center of the quarter panel "floor" piece, with the drain flap in the center of the dimple - much more efficient for draining water without creating a water (rust) trap. I can't remember what the Sedan flaps/dimples look like...probably like the Coupe?

Funny thing I've noticed is that inside the quarter panels, all the metal looks pretty clean and rust free and there's no evidence of water sitting in there. The rust seems to happen from underneath where it gets water kicked up by the tires and/or runs down the outside of the body.

On a Spider panel I reworked once before, I used a simple hydraulic press & 2 large different-sized impact sockets to re-create the dimple. Worked great! ;)
That'd def. work too!
 
I don't think I've ever seen this - do you have a photo of this "Abarth re-stamping"? Or are you talking about something like this?:

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(This is the factory Fiat stamping on the left inner fender wall of early 850's, which your 1324 should have. The alloy VIN tag is normally mounted above the stamping, as in my photo).
Ah, so the later coupes didn't have the VIN stamped on the sidewall which explains why my two later series 1 coupes had the stamping on the firewall and nothing on the sidewall. This is the stamping I'm transferring over.

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Ah, so the later coupes didn't have the VIN stamped on the sidewall which explains why my two later series 1 coupes had the stamping on the firewall and nothing on the sidewall.

I'm not completely sure, but the switch in VIN locations was probably mid-1967(?), so a late '67 & '68 would've had it on the firewall. Whichever Coupe of yours had the black-painted engine bay had the VIN stamped on the left wall, not on the firewall. It was a fairly early VIN (for a North American car), #056794 is about half of your 1300's VIN.

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Curious, do you still have the firewall from this black engine bay Coupe? Does it have a triangular metal cover plate over the fuel tank sending unit access hole, like this?:

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This is the stamping I'm transferring over.

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Yeah, that's regular factory Fiat stamping, no Abarth involvement here.
 
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I'm not completely sure, but the switch in VIN locations was probably mid-1967(?), so a late '67 & '68 would've had it on the firewall. Whichever Coupe of yours had the black-painted engine bay had the VIN stamped on the left wall, not on the firewall. It was a fairly early VIN (for a North American car), #056794 is about half of your 1300's VIN.

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Curious, do you still have the firewall from this black engine bay Coupe? Does it have a triangular metal cover plate over the fuel tank sending unit access hole, like this?:

No. The previous owner had intended to transform the car into his own interpretation of an "Abarth tribute" car and clearly did not know how Abarth modified the 1300s. He cut the entire firewall out and it did not come with the car. When I got the coupe (with black engine bay) it came with another coupe that had been seriously squished/rolled/crunched in an accident and the firewall in that car was about all I could salvage from it that wasn't very damaged (or badly rusted). The piece I used to repair and duplicate the Abarth-modified firewall in my "new" 1300 body is from that firewall. My 1300/124 is being built/repaired with various body panels/pieces from 3 other coupes in total!

I have never seen a coupe with a triangular opening like that. What year is that coupe from?? Looks like there's a few other differences in small hole/penetration locations too.

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Yeah, that's regular factory Fiat stamping, no Abarth involvement here.
 
I have never seen a coupe with a triangular opening like that. What year is that coupe from?? Looks like there's a few other differences in small hole/penetration locations too.

That's my Canadian Coupe that I need all of the odd body panel pieces for. ;)

I don't have an 850 Coupe VIN-by-year registry to go by, but I'm guessing it's either a '66 or very early '67. I asked about your black-engine-bay firewall because, with a VIN much lower than mine, it may have had this same style of early fuel tank port cover.
 
Progress has been progressing... :)

Have got a lot of the rust and damage repairs and mods dealt with except for finishing the welding and grinding/sanding. Am getting ready to put the shell on my rotisserie so I can get good access to the underside to address rust on the floor pan.

The car had been hit on the left rear quarter panel, left front fender, front nose and the right rocker panel. This photo is a partial replacement of the rear quarter panel using donor metal. The bump-out thingy for the bumper had been damaged by the PO so I patched in a piece off the old 1300/124. This took a lot of trial fitting, trimming, re-fitting over and over until I got an even gap all around. The critical area for fitment was above the tail light so I started there and moved along the seam, planishing the welds as I went until I got to the fender lip where it's impossible to get a dolly inside behind.

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The front fender wasn't too bad and I did a repair near the headlight and the bumper bracket thingy donor metal, one piece off the 1300/124. Part of the fender has a bunch of dents, probably from previous repair of the damage. I may be able to work it out a bit better but a light skim coat of filler is probably the easiest.

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Welded in the VIN off the 1300/124.
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The damage to the right rocker would have been a real challenge to repair it was so damaged, but luckily I had good donor rocker material on hand and just sectioned in a piece of it.

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The first thing I did with the front nose was cut away the trunk and battery compartment metal like Abarth did. I still need to finish grinding and sanding the cuts though. The lower part of the nose is prone to rusting because of the way water gets trapped between the sheet metal and cross rail (removed and not in photo). Poor factory design... I trimmed away the least amount of rusty sheet metal on the nose panel. I wanted to retain as much of the original contour of the panel as possible so the cut line looks kinda odd.


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I had no good donor sheet metal so I had to fabricate a new patch piece. Using a profile gauge and what I had on hand to roll the metal, a weed sprayer, I curved the metal, welded it together to form a slight vee shape and then trimmed it to suit. Took a bit of work using a rubber mallet to massage a matching curve onto the flat sheet metal. I had to weld on the lower lip due to the left/right curvature and vertical bend of about 45 degrees. A little hammer & dolly work rounded out the middle of the vee to match the original shape. I just don't have fancy equipment to do complex shaped bends.

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To be continued, dot, dot, dot.
 
dot, dot, dot, the continuation (thx to 10 pic limit).

This is the original Abarth front grille. I bought this from Jeff Stich who came across it at a pick 'n pull along with a few other genuine Abarth items off a 1300/124. My 1300/124 came sans the grille and some other Abarth parts specific to this model. I have an NOS plastic emblem for it that I got from Bayless around the time when they were closing down their business. Unfortunately it's in silver which was used on the cars painted red. The Abarths came in white or red only. I will probably paint the car red but means finding interior door cards in black which will probably be a challenge. White cars had a red interior. I had the grille copper plated at a chrome shop to help preserve the pot metal. I need to figure out how to redo the chrome. I'm thinking of using chrome spray paint as getting a chrome job done would be quite costly. Actually, I'm not sure what Abarth did for plating them.

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The upper part of the nose panel was damaged and it was another one of those areas where it's impossible to get a dolly behind the panel to work on it. Since I had to cut out an opening for the grill, the easy solution was to use a donor piece and drop it right in along with some minor welding on the left and right. The grille opening still needs trimming to match the grill size.

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After Abarth removed the front trunk area and battery compartment to make way for the radiator fan, they used a curved piece of tubing at the bottom of the nose panel to reinforce it. It is pretty close to 3/8" x 3/4" which would of course been in the metric equivalent. I looked high and low for rectangular tubing in 3/8 x 3/4" and it doesn't seem to exist. So I bought some square 3/4" 16 gauge tubing and clamped it to a piece of 3/8" thick flat bar as a guide and sliced the tubing in half with a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder. Doing this actually made it easier to form the right curve in it anyway. After getting the curve formed, I welded some flat pieces of 16 ga. onto the backside. Abarth had a taper on the ends of the piece so I had to match that too. You can see the piece clamped in place in the above photo. I'mm going to weld it in place when I've got the shell on the rotisserie for better access.

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One thing I'm not positive about yet is exactly how the radiator was attached to the front nose. All there is left to go by is two holes in the lower part of the nose which are definitely original and would have been for pushing some sort of bolt through onto the rad. bracket. There is a piece of flat metal welded onto the sheet metal and lower reinforcing piece that I can't tell if is original or not. There were so many ridiculous things done to the body by an unknown PO to deal with rust and damage. I've reached out to a few 1300/124 owners for help but haven't had a response.

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The bottom of the B-pillar on the right side was rusted through and needed a new piece. The easiest way out of that was to cut away the bad metal with my Dremel tool (with fiberglass cutoff wheel). The real tricky part was getting the cutoff wheel inside the rocker/B-pillar to grind off the spot weld and doing it blind. I had to do a tiny bit of grinding, then feel inside with a finger over and over until I got it. I had no good donor metal and had to fab a new piece to suit.

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What a beach doing this little piece! Here is the outcome. Needs some work with a 3/4" or 1" sanding disc on the die grinder to make it look pretty.

I've got the engine compartment area pretty much completed. The VIN is in (blue circle). The Abarth reinforcement for the engine crossmember is in (yellow). The quarter panel is fully welded in (orange). The engine panel has 6 studs for bolting to the body. Abarth cut away the hole on the body for the mid-height one so I replicated that (red). There were a couple of 1/2" (approx.) holes that weren't there on the early bodies so I filled them in (black). I got the triangular shaped piece underneath welded in (pink arrow) and there's a photo of the piece in a previous post. The lower part of the rear quarter panel on the drivers side only needed rust repair and new metal was welded in (green). Abarth removed the stock fuel filler & shroud and installed his own to clear the 124 engine air cleaner. I cut away the old shroud, finished it off to match exactly how Abarth did it and then drilled holes for the rivnuts that were used to fasten the new fuel filler (purple).

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The next time I check in, the body will have the floor all fixed up. Then "all" I'll need to do is finish the welding, get the welds sanded down smooth and then some filler here and there. After that, push the body outside and media blast it, spray a coat of epoxy primer on it, then spray high-build urethane primer over that, block sand it all, touch imperfections where needed and then it'll be ready for some paint. Easy peasy... Oh dang, then there's the front and rear lids, rear engine panel and the doors and a few bits and pieces like hinges for the front & rear lids, the fuel filler shroud. engine crossmember and more... :(
 
Got the shell on the rotisserie today. The floor is in much better condition than I thought and am very excited about that. I was thinking I needed to pull the entire floor out and replace it with one off the donor car. The worst rust is the rear foot well areas behind the front seats. Not too hard to repair. The reddish color that sort of looks like rust is just the factory primer.

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