Seat mounting ?'s

[Iron Ranger]

In my 92 supercab, I noticed on the (rear left on driver's and rear right on the pass.) seat bolt-down locations, there was massive cracking and chunks of this very brittle metal falling out. I POR'ed the driver's side and decided to weld new metal on the pass. side.

Much to my dismay, the brittle metal is unweldable, I have no idea what this crap is. I had to do a good enough job to where when I re-install the seats, I'll have to use silicon to seal up the area

Does anyone know what this brittle crap is? I'm just curious.

 

[nitrofan1]

When the carpet is pulled back how does the surface of the floor look? Is it smooth? What about the bottom of the floor pan?

 

[Iron Ranger]

When the carpet is pulled back how does the surface of the floor look? Is it smooth? What about the bottom of the floor pan?

Only at those 2 mounting points its cracked. Not much rust-wise, but one massive 2"x2" square crack through the sheet metal floor. The underside isn't that bad, it's located right under one of the cab crossmember supports. I dug out a good portion of the "mystery metal" to reveal the mounting block.

My first guess is the metal is some sort of pot metal. Super brittle, can't weld on it, pretty much useless material.

 

[AllanD]

Crumbly "rust" isn't weldable

and there is usually a considerable ammount of non metallic factory "putty" that does the same job as dynamat...

AD

 

[Iron Ranger]

This is what I'm talking about. The cracked stuff is not the sheetmetal floor and I already pulled out the old "dynamat" stuff.

Whatever it is, it's in between the sheet metal floor and the cab's subframe.

 

[Natedog]

This is what I'm talking about. The cracked stuff is not the sheetmetal floor and I already pulled out the old "dynamat" stuff.

Whatever it is, it's in between the sheet metal floor and the cab's subframe.

Possible previous crappy repair covered with pretty paint? Odd looking and not what I was picturing from your description. Pic from below? Have you tried removing the paint to see what is really under it? Bondo and rusty metal maybe?

 

[Iron Ranger]

Possible previous crappy repair covered with pretty paint? Odd looking and not what I was picturing from your description. Pic from below? Have you tried removing the paint to see what is really under it? Bondo and rusty metal maybe?

Hey, c'mon now, that's my crappy repair, and I put pretty paint over it

I had to move along so I tried my best to fix it, but I ran out of sheet metal and made best with what I had.

Whatever it was, it came from the factory that way, what ever they used there.

 

[Natedog]

No offense intended Iron Ranger. SOmetimes ya just gotta do what it takes. The paint looks nice. So I think you're saying the pic is after a previous repair by you? I see what looks like a weld at the upper left corner possibly?

My Toyota 4x4 had several cracks in the floor mainly on the drivers side....but it has seen years of very hard rock crawling. It seems the floor flexes enough that it work hardened and cracked....mine had no rust. I reinforced it with bolt in plates and sealed it with silicone....worked well. I then put in reinforced seat belt anchor points too. If I lived in a wetter climate, I'm sure my floor woulda been pretty rusty and crumbly also.

 

[Iron Ranger]

That spot used to have sheet metal over it, but it cracked off. Under that sheetmetal was that very hard crumbly crap, not rust or rotted metal, but some brittle "pad". Once I chipped away some of the pad, the seat mounting block was under that.

Which leads me to believe that there is something inbetween the floor and the frame that the Ford factory put there for some reason.