Ah, the things that we find when we start digging. Last night, I was stripping the tar like sound deadener in the floorboards of my 71 S3. On the drivers side, I used a heat gun. On the passengers side, I used a wood chisel and flaked it right out.
As a side note, once, the P.O. took the car to get tires and when they put the car on a lift, they didn’t put the pads under the support posts which pushed up the floor. It took some work to get them flattened to a normal position.
When I got to the front of the passenger foot well, I exposed a bubble gum pink surface. I thought to myself, “No good can come from this.” Anyway, it was bondo with glass mesh and had old paint on it and I am sure that it was not from the P.O. Other than that spot and the front of the driver side footwell, the floorboards are in great shape but repairs will have to be made.
So, to get a better look at what lies ahead, I pulled the right bulkhead toe panel which is in good shape to get a better look. The panel right next to the toe panel was also fixed with bondo and glass mesh. This was all under the heat shield which makes me wonder when the “repairs” were made in the cars life.
The spot welds on the toe panel were factory welds but the edge of the panel to the firewall had been welded very very poorly and then bondo was applied. Quite a cludgy job IMHO.
One thing that I found on the floorboards were very tiny pins that were part of the floorboards. These are not the snaps for the carpet and they seemed to be right in the middle of holes in the original sound deadener. I suspect that they were for alignment purposes when in stalling the deadener.
Well at least the OP only has Bondo in the floor. I once acquired a Porsche 356 that had the whole body, including the roof, sort of carved out of solid Bondo. I reckon it was about 1/2" thick in most places.
Acid leakage or fumes from the battery are part of the problem here. Be sure to install a sealed battery or vent properly with a hose out the bottom of the mud shield.
My E had about a 1/2 inch of bondo on the nose, always seemed a bit fat looking. When I pulled it off someone had drilled a bunch of holes for a slide hammer. Amazing when you have access to both sides of the panel. Welded them closed and a couple of hours of hand anvil and hammer and it was all right again.
I always take a fridge magnet, slides right off bondo
worst I saw was a rusted out uni rail frame member rusted, floor above rusted, bits of lumber jammed into gap. my suggestion, ram in some reo, fill with hard concrete mix
(not an E-type mind you! )
Reminds me of the tale of a new owner who within 3 days noticed the dreaded bubbles coming through on his near side sill, just below the b post. On digging in he found newspaper and bondo and confronted the guy he bought it from. The guy simply says it must have been like that when I bought it, to which the new owner says” I doubt it, it was Tuesdays newspaper”
Its amazing how effetive the fridge magnet technique is (the plastic ones that have advertising on them, (about 2" x 2" x 1/16")
they will distiguish between a thin, say 1/8" bondo over good steel, to which they will partially adhere…they will instantly drop of more than 1/4" of bondo.
Can do a whole car in a few minutes, totally non-invasive
I would go so far as to say if you inspect and buy an old car without doing this first, you are an idiot, and have no basis to complain after