Heater core backed up and soaked passenger floor unknown to me soon after buying this a couple years ago. The rust problem is fairly isolated, but I'm thinking it might need an entire passenger floor pan replacement. I don't have the equipment or skills for this job and am not familiar with this type of repair. Do I take it to a body shop? Any clue how much these jobs run? Want to have a ballpark price in mind for when I go hunting for quotes.

The rest of the rig is in fairly good shape and the engine itself only has 25k miles so I'm willing to invest some bucks if that's what it takes.

 

First thing to do is take the seats and center console out then remove the carpet. You need to be able to see how extensive the damage is.

Then take it to a body shop and get a quote. You can shop around all you want. Check around on the web and see if you can find a good deal on a replacement floor pan.

You can decide how much work you want the body shop to do. Just cut out the bad and weld new in. Do that and use seal sealer or whatever else they would recommend. All that can be done at home easily saving you alot of money.

I am serious about getting the carpet out before taking it to get a quote. There might be more damage than you realize

 

I agree it will be worse than what you see with carpet in most likely. Here is a pic of mine as about 2 years ago I replaced all four pans.

 

Ouch! Yeah I'm kind of expecting that. Hoping its isolated to just the one pan, but I guess I'll find out when I rip the carpet.

 

I could of gotten away with patching the others in spots but the drivers side was completely gone. Pans were pretty cheap and this gave me a good reason to buy me a welder! Only leak I found on drivers side was floor plug and the rubber seal for the steering column / firewall was not in the hole. Strange thing the previous owner tried to do a cheap repair/cover it up and installed new carpet but failed to find and fix where the water was coming in.

 

oops wrong post

 

I had 1/2 the driver pan replaced on the Mustang not long ago, from the firewall to the the front edge of the front seat. About the same size panel as an XJ. Also had a 6" hole in the inner rocker where the pan was spotwelded. The repair cost me $300, not including the parts, which was another $60 or so.

 

Way back when, I had the entire floor replaced on my 92. It came as one solid piece from the firewall to under the back seat where it met the rear hatch floor. The whole thing was welded into place. about 1500-2000 comes to mind included everything. They cut the entire old floor out and then welded new one

 

I was going to guess somewhere in the $300-$500 range, depending on the degree of rot and if its going to take more than just the pan.

 

Remember two things about rust:

1. It never sleeps.
2. It's never alone.

 

mine was the entire cabin floor both sides front to back all one piece that's why so expensive lots of cutting and welding. I think it came painted black

 

Definitely take carpet out front and back to see the total damage. You need to find the leak or it will just happen again. I had to replace the front floor pan on both the drivers and passengers side as well as the cross beam/seat mount on the passenger side. I looked everywhere and the best place for the parts is Quadratec. They have all the floor pans from just the front or the full if you need to go into the rear passenger area. The front floor pans go the the rear side of the cross beam/seat mount.
Mine was about $1300 but I had him undercoat the bottoms and clean up any other rust spots and prime and paint the inside.

https://www.quadratec.com/categories...kw=floor%20pan

 

Apparently you can save a ton of money doing it yourself. I did mine two summers ago.
Just passenger side front and back. Ordered the pans online, pulled seat, center console, seat belt. Cut out bad floor, which there wasn’t much left, being careful not to cut cross members. Used grinder to clean up good sheet metal and brushed painted bare metal with rustoleum black and brown paint. Painted pans as well.
I don’t have a welder so had to pop rivot it in. Filled spaces between pans and existing metal with paintable caulk.
Sprayed several coats truck bed liner on underneath and done.
It passed inspection which was the whole point.
Total cost probably no more than $150
Now if you plan on keeping your Jeep forever than you may want to spend the money. I don’t have any plans in selling mine but I really don’t want to pay anybody anything to do any work on my Jeep. I’ve done all repairs so far.
One plus is it’s not as loud in the cabin after you put in a solid floor 😂

 

How structural is a floor plan? That can answer the question of DIY or done by a Pro.

 

Well you’re not falling through if that’s what you mean. The number of cross members keep the floor sturdy. You also want to make sure you leave some flex room as the Cherokee is a Unibody.