Do I dare?
So I've discovered some patches in the floor of my car that will need sorting. Picture where the heal of your left foot lands, somewhere around there the steel has weakened, and is now open to the elements. So I'll have to sand it all back and have a proper look at how good / bad this is and then add some kind of material back. Bare in mind not for a road rego'd car so less rules to worry about.
Now being around race cars I've seen all sorts of weird and wonderful things. I have seen chaps whom have cut the complete floor plat out, and epoxy / fiberglassed directly to the left over bits of floor, perhaps overlapping an inch at most. Then steel / alloy brackets, perhaps 50mm wide in alloy with captive nuts from the bottom to allow a seat from the top and off they go.
I've seen folks run of to Bunnings to get some checker board, bend and cut to shape, cutting the rusty section out of the floor and simply riveting over the top, (after laying some wicked thick beads of poly-something around the opening) in a patch of various sizes.
Then of course the chaps that buy the correct width sheet metal, add some dimples via a press, cut flush, and stitch welds back into the floor.
When it comes to sh1t race car, are any of these necessarily "wrong"?
What do I mean by wrong? Well I'm expecting 10yrs worth of fun left at most from this thing, and even then that's probably a bit optimistic.
I've checked some of the sporting rules again (3D Sports Sedan) turns out I can remove ~49% of my floor and replace it as necessary. This sounds crazy initially, but with a cage in holding the corners together, I don't suppose the floor does anything other then giving you somewhere to bolt a seat to along with a bit of protection from the elements, ie, with a cage it really isn't a monocoque chassis anymore?
Thinking about how these things are made from la factory, I also note that most of the panels are only tacked together anyway, so as silly as riveting chequer plate as a patch into the floor, perhaps it's not that stupid (when used with a cage in place eventually).
This would be a different conversation if I had a welder, actually it probably wouldn't
So I've discovered some patches in the floor of my car that will need sorting. Picture where the heal of your left foot lands, somewhere around there the steel has weakened, and is now open to the elements. So I'll have to sand it all back and have a proper look at how good / bad this is and then add some kind of material back. Bare in mind not for a road rego'd car so less rules to worry about.
Now being around race cars I've seen all sorts of weird and wonderful things. I have seen chaps whom have cut the complete floor plat out, and epoxy / fiberglassed directly to the left over bits of floor, perhaps overlapping an inch at most. Then steel / alloy brackets, perhaps 50mm wide in alloy with captive nuts from the bottom to allow a seat from the top and off they go.
I've seen folks run of to Bunnings to get some checker board, bend and cut to shape, cutting the rusty section out of the floor and simply riveting over the top, (after laying some wicked thick beads of poly-something around the opening) in a patch of various sizes.
Then of course the chaps that buy the correct width sheet metal, add some dimples via a press, cut flush, and stitch welds back into the floor.
When it comes to sh1t race car, are any of these necessarily "wrong"?
What do I mean by wrong? Well I'm expecting 10yrs worth of fun left at most from this thing, and even then that's probably a bit optimistic.
I've checked some of the sporting rules again (3D Sports Sedan) turns out I can remove ~49% of my floor and replace it as necessary. This sounds crazy initially, but with a cage in holding the corners together, I don't suppose the floor does anything other then giving you somewhere to bolt a seat to along with a bit of protection from the elements, ie, with a cage it really isn't a monocoque chassis anymore?
Thinking about how these things are made from la factory, I also note that most of the panels are only tacked together anyway, so as silly as riveting chequer plate as a patch into the floor, perhaps it's not that stupid (when used with a cage in place eventually).
This would be a different conversation if I had a welder, actually it probably wouldn't