What is the correct treatment for floorboards during a restore?

[BlackC4]

Do you paint them body color, black or some other treatment?

[Bullethead]

Satin black, same as dash... '68 Sporto below, must be the season for restorations.

[MoparBoy72]

On LWB cars the floors should be body color with black masking the outer seat rail mounting points and the center tunnel.



The black on the pan is actually the paint worn away and the rubber sound mat showing. The red is resale red paint. Maybe not the best picture but hopefully you get the point.

[Bullethead]

Good catch Andrew, I should've read his sig:'73T. ^^^BTW, pretty unpleasant color change... there should be a law.

[LongRanger]

. . . On LWB cars the floors should be body color with black masking the outer seat rail mounting points and the center tunnel . . .


. . . The black on the pan is actually the paint worn away and the rubber sound mat showing . . .

The photos below are of a '70 Euro.

Black material on the floors is not so much 'paint' but some kind of semi-soft/semi-gloss kind of coating --- still soft, 'reactive.' Floor board finish is weird --- like a stain that didn't quite take. Floor mats seem to react with everything they touched --- transferring their nubby pattern to both the floors and the boards.

Rick Kreiskott

[Tom F.]

On a 70-73, with galvanized floor and PVC undercoating, you should not have to do anything to the floor pan, aside from cleaning up some surface rust around the pedals. Clean the underside with Simple Green, a steam cleaner, or something like that. Check that the PVC is intact. (It usually is, except in the wheel arches, where stones and mud take a toll.) Leave the top side alone. I see way too many of the floor pans on these cars get sprayed with bituminous undercoating and incorrect paint. To me, it looks cheesy.

If you're repairing big time rust, then you'll have to get more aggressive.