removing flooring, wheel well covers

[druidwood]

Advice here was to do it and it is GOOD advice. Even though couldn't see much rust below when buying bus, now that I am pulling up plywood (very hard job as nails rusted to metal) most of it is wet and most of the floor has some rust. Not sure where all the moisture came from, but bus came from marine environment. Will leave floor open in rainy season to check for leaks.

I gave my wheelchair lift to a knowledgeable gentleman who said I should use a sand blaster (which uses walnut shells) to clean the floor and also said there is a kind of welding you can do to fill in all the holes on the floor. Both sound like good ideas since there must be a 100 holes in the floor.

The rubber/plastic black covers over the wheel wells have damage - can I remove these then box up and insulate the wells separately? I assume they just protected the metal well and gave some sound proofing? Thanks.

[Skipoffools]

To seal the 100+ holes we used these thin metal circles called tin caps (used for attaching roofing felt), and seam sealer (used for sealing seams in sheet metal in auto industry). Just squirt a dab and squish it down. The seam sealer is paintable/sandable and stays flexible. Some others have used foil ducting tape. I wouldn't advise welding unless you hire a master welder, because that metal is pretty thin and the heat could warp the floor. Also welding would require you to go underneath and seal the bottom side of the welds to protect from rust. And as you probably know from removing seats, some of those holes are almost impossible to reach.

[druidwood]

Thank you. I had never heard of tin caps. Yes some bolts impossible over fuel tank, so ripping out floor around and using sawzall to cut from above.