Floor Rust

Some time ago I decided to pull my carpet out of the Range Rover and clean it. The rear carpet was very dirty so I did it first. It was an easy assignment and I took the carpet to the car wash and just like the adverts you can spray it clean. The previous owner's children did not concern themselves with tidy behavior in the rear of the Rangie and it showed when the water hit the carpet. I would venture a guess that no less than ten McDonald's cokes were spilled back there.

After reading on a board about someone hosing out their Rover after a nice dip in a muddy river and if improperly done you might encourage rust to form, I decided to check my floor boards. Thus to have a good baseline of the rust and to clean the carpet. I decided to remove my front carpets. The front carpet is one large piece and straddles the center hump. It is also inconveniently underneath a great deal of wires and harnesses not to mention the center console.
Center Console Removed

I knew for sometime that the floor boards as we call them here in the Americas stay wet. I'm pretty sure the windshield (windscreen) leaks. That explains the water under there during the wet months. But in the deep hot of the summer there should not be any water under the carpet. I figure I have an air conditioning condenser leak. That system pulls the humidity out of the air as the air moves across the colder air conditioning coil and thus the resulting condensation drains off the coil and into a pan and out of the cab through the drain tubes.

The carpet and the rubber pad on the passenger side are wet and seem to be wet all the time. I decided I would find the leak. With all the talk on some of the boards about rust I know it can be a big problem. Why hedge your bets? Just get it fixed and avoid a costly repair later.

Back to the carpet. I pulled the console. This is no big deal. There is a "C" clip holding the shifter on and once removed the rest of the pieces are easily removed. The console and attached cubby box should come out together. Now notice I said "attached". The cubby box and shifter cover assembly should be attached. Mine is not. There are two whimpy little plastic brackets that have not been attached for some time it seems.

The carpet will not come out without the removal of some of the wires and plugs.
Wires and Plugs
Some of them are labeled, namely the left and right side plugs for the seat heaters. The rest are each different from the other so plugging them back in should not be a problem. If you think it is a problem you can label them for easy assembly.

I am determined to make the carpet easy to remove next time. So after I hosed it off in the car wash, and yes it was as bad as the back, I cut it into two pieces right down the middle. I also cut the holes to the side so that they would slip around the various parts namely the emergency brake lever.
Carpet Removed

I pulled the drain hoses and made sure they weren't blocked or stopped up.
Under the dash
The air compressor worked great for this. On most normal cars and trucks the air conditioning drain has a nice puddle of water under it when the AC is on. I have never noticed this on my truck. So I thought for sure the drains were leaking into the floor board. I learned this was not the case. I don't have a puddle because my drain is situated directly above the frame under the hood (bonnet) and drain down the side where the catalytic converter is. So the water is mostly evaporating before it can gather in sufficient amounts to leak on to the ground.

Once the carpets are up I needed to dry everything out. I placed some spacers under the mat to allow it to dry out without me having to remove it from the truck. Oklahoma summers are hot and this was finally accomplished after a couple of weeks. Leaving the center of the truck disassembled this long finally wore on my wife's nerves this week with this comment, "Damn Eric, put your truck back together." I told her I wasn't done yet. This project being prolonged had some help from other outside influences. My mom had a stroke, the kid's school started and fall baseball started. I have run out of free time. Which was fine as the pad was not dry for a few weeks.

With the carpet out of the way I noticed that the screws holding the plastic parts that cover the electronics under the seats were badly rusted. They needed to be cut/scored so that they could be removed.
Grinding the screws
I got the Dremel out and with a cutting disk slotted the screws so I could get them out. RovErica helped with the pics of this. I bought stainless steel replacements. The floor on the passenger side had a bad patch of rust so I used a wire brush and sand paper to get the rust off and then I applied some paint to annoy the rust for a while.

I cleaned the plastic bits off as they were very dirty and stained with 11 years of dirt and coke and who knows what else. I also noticed that the wires to the ECU under the passenger side were nicely bundled and with just a little effort the ECU could be moved to under the dash. Ozzie at Ozzie's Offroad has done this. The picture is near the bottom of this page. It gives you a few more inches of submersion. I'm guessing six or more before your truck conks out when your fording a river or stream. I will find out how he mounted the ECU. Specifically what kind of bracket did he need and probably move mine in the future.

I used a few tools for this project. I don't think I missed any but for sure there were no new tools.

The difficulty of this project is a 1.5 on the Difficulty Scale. I only rated it a 1.5 due to the Dremel use. Always wear eye protection. I have had cut wheels from the Dremel hit me several times after it flew apart. You can use more brutal methods to remove the rusted screws you may find under the carpet. I also used the air compressor a lot to blow out the dirt and rust.

Thanks for reading and happy Rovering.