Anyone who owns an E-Series cargo only van, factory rear mat and no insulation has seen or knows the rear floor is terribly prone to rust. The main culprit is the mat itself, more specifically the padding which acts like a sponge. It absorbs moisture but never fully dries, each subsequent heat/cool cycle adding more but it never fully evaporates out. Essentially the van floor is constantly under water so even the best factory finish eventually succumbs to the ravages of rust.

Occasionally this has gone on so long and left unaddressed it becomes so severe to be very costly or possibly leading to scrapping the van completely. I've recently acquired a 2003 E250 extended body that has this exact condition, a few photos:






Before bringing this home I had the PO flip the mat over so it would dry out a bit. 6 days later it was still very damp which shows how sponge-like the padding can be! Laying in the sun another 3 full days and it was finally dry enough to store away:



I'll be covering the floor with 3/4 treated plywood but wanted to first take care of this rust---hopefully this will be the last van I need before retiring or wearing out work-wise!

Through the Paiint/Bodywork forums I found POR-15 which seems to be miracle material for this sort of thing. As it turns out a customer of mine uses it quite often, is an authorized dealer so I got the good guy price. Along with the cost savings comes a ton of experience in applying the material so I hit the jackpot of luck on this project.

A few after photos:




Over all I'm very, VERY impressed with this POR-15 as a rust preventative, would highly recommend it to anyone with any sort of rust issues they hope to stop. Naturally nothing beats prevention but if neglect or being unaware of such a condition takes its toll its good to know something like this exists!

PS: I am NOT a paid endorser for POR-15! I did write more details of the process I used here: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-por-15-a.html if anyone is interested.)

Thanks for reading---questions and/or comments are welcome.

 

That is why I have always installed 3/4" exterior plywood in all of my Vans.....At least you had no holes...I have at least 3 quarts of POR-15 on my truck due to the salt ( Actually green slime ) they put on our roads here in Winter....I am in a constant war with salt caused corrosion on my truck . Nice work

 

Good job, JWA. Thanks for posting. My '02 E150 is a conversion which has some kind of formed foam padding on the floor, and I'm kind of afraid to lift it after all these years for fear of what I might find. I will have to take a look.

My '78 F100 had the rubber mats in the interior with the jute/whatever padding, and there was a leak under the dash somewhere which kept this crap saturated. Not only rust, but the truck was probably a mold pit as well.

Good work,
George

 

Thanks both of you guys----appreciate the comments!

Blageurt I'm wondering how long your POR-15 has been in place, has it prevented rust or stopped that which had already formed? I'm in Columbus, Ohio where salting the roads is common so we might have similar conditions.

George I'm thinking since your conversion is partially insulated where the inside walls and roof are covered with fabric and such you're not experiencing the sweating a bare cargo van seems to suffer. In the mid-90's I was hanging around a van conversion shop, had the occasion to help replace carpeting in then current and much earlier vans, those very notorious for being rust prone. The side walls were rust eaten due window installation but the floors were still in great condition---I'm hoping your own floor would still be sound and mostly rust free.

 

5 years in some spots....the most important thing is the Metal Prep...I bought the spray they sell , but have also used Ajax / Comet powder cleaner on the bare metal and rinsed it off to similar results....great stuff ....Very important to top coat it as well it seems the UV attacks it .... It stops further rust but it also can make it rust from the opposite side where you cannot get to .... So every year or so I rust proof it to slow down the corrosion....Krown Rust Control| Rustproofing and Protection for Cars, Trucks, Vans

 

Wow that rusty for an 03!

My 85 didn't have the best lookin floor.... but it is 27 years old....


I had a few holes to patch up and seal. I am contemplating doing the entire floor inside and underneath with that POR15 stuff. Heard lots of good things about it.



Guess that'll come later on this summer once I work out all the mechanical bugs from it, and decide to keep it going for another long time, or find something else. It will need an Injector pump and head gaskets very soon.



blageurt - nice to see another Krown fan here! I worked at a Krown for 5 months, some cars i've seen that have been Krowned since new, are plain impressive! I recommend it to anyone! To bad it's Canadian only, the northern Americans would benefit alot from this stuff.

 

That's all just surface rust John---was gone in a jiffy with nothing more than a grinder-mounted wire wheel, nothing but bare metal without even a bit of pitting.

 

Hi All,

I do not know anything about body work and was surprised to see that you could take the floor out like that. Is that hard to do?

 

That's not the floor, it's the backside of the rubber mat with the rust transferred to the backing.

 

JWA you should see the floors in my 96 E250!! They are rusted thru along almost the entire perimeter of my rear floor. I'm waiting for the body to completely fall off!! It's a little too far gone for me to mess with, to try and fix. Yours didn't look too bad. And it looks good now that you've cleaned it up and POR'd it.

POR-15 is great stuff. As long as you did the prep work correctly it will just about last forever. The only down side is if you don't top coat it with some other paint it will eventually discolor some from the UV rays. What's great about it is it stops rust dead! And it won't allow rust to creep in under it. You could have rust right next to it and it won't lift. I've had great luck with it on quite a few different projects. I'm going to coat my entire 54 F100 project inside and out with POR-15. And my 89 E350 is going to get some when I start fixing the surface rust issue on it.