Big day... and immediately a question!?!

Psychoman

Hi all,

Well - big day today - as the weather was good, I decided to rip into the start of my "bad road" family wild camper conversion. The base vehicle is a Sprinter 4x4, which was originally an environment agency crew cab, with a load of Bott racking and boxes in the back.

After 4 or 5 hours I've stripped out most of the back of the van - all the racking and boxes are out, and the webasto heater disconnected. I still need to rip out the existing catering station (carefully - I plan to reuse a fair bit of that) and sort some nasty rust I found around the extractor fan when I pulled the roof lining - but so far I'm pretty happy with that for an afternoon's work. :dance: I'll post photos of the build as it progresses if anyone is interested?

Anyway - my question... having unbolted all the racking and stuff I now have a floor with probably 25-30 decent size bolt holes, plus a couple of 2" vents. The holes go through the existing heavy duty flooring and through the van floor - some into box sections, some just through the tin work. My plan was to leave the existing floor in place and possibly put lighter ply over this - but what to do about the holes?!? If I run bolts back through then, then I won't have a level surface to mount the new "top" floor to, but presumably if I just leave them, then wet from road spray will find its way in under the ply and rot both the ply and the sheet metal over time? Do I need to pull the existing flooring up, fibre glass or weld up the holes (which seems a hell of a lot of work) or is there a smarter solution?

I guess I'm not the first to face this issue - hoping someone on here can give me a useful suggestion? :idea:
 
n brown

n brown

Forum Member
get a can of zinc spray and spray in and around the holes then when dry fill with sikaflex or stixall
 

Val54

Just a thought, if you are going to over sheet the existing floor you could try a squirt of expanding foam in each hole. The top surface can be trimmed and you could underseal where the foam is visible underneath. Might need a plate over the vents on the underside depending on where they are in relation to roadspray.
Cheers
Dave
 

Obanboy666

As rodeo suggested either counterbore them or countersink them which would probably be easier with a hand drill. Not sure what the hole sizes are but screwfix do a good range of bolts etc at a good price, countersunk head, caphead etc etc. i used them for building a trailer and used stainless steel which were not much more expensive than mild steel bolts.
 
witzend

witzend

Forum Member
Take out the old floor carefully so you can use it for pattern then you can clean and paint all floor area when paint dry cover holes with some sealant and replace with new flooring won't be much more expensive as you'll only be buying a bit heaver ply and you will have treated all the floor
 

Psychoman

Obanboy666 said:
As rodeo suggested either counterbore them or countersink them which would probably be easier with a hand drill. Not sure what the hole sizes are but screwfix do a good range of bolts etc at a good price, countersunk head, caphead etc etc. i used them for building a trailer and used stainless steel which were not much more expensive than mild steel bolts.
Click to expand...

Confused - why can't I see Rodeo's post? Am I being dim?

But thanks for the advice all. Should be an interesting build I hope ;)
 

Rodeo

Sorry guys! I removed the post cos I felt it was just 'spamming' the thread, with little constructive comment! Much more constructive reply from NB and others!
 

molly 2

Should not be to difficult to lift flooring. You have many. Options.1 Mig weld and grind flat, plate large holes, hammerite or underseal repairs. 2man job as you need a fire watcher underneath .2 pop rivet small plates over holes plenty of sealer both sides underseal
Watch your don't drill wireing ,brake or fuel lines.3 cover holes with Fibre glass past (jam) under seal .4 fit countersunk bolts and seal. If the floor is striped it should not be too expensive to have welded as it should only take a few minutes to mig weld per hole .or cheap and cheerful. Ducktape holes not recommend.
 
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Psychoman

Cheers all. Only slight complication is that I have unwin rails bolted through the front floor, and to remove them means dropping the fuel tank... so not a quick job... will keep you informed of progress!
 
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