Today my wife and I set in on removing the side steps and plastic moldings along the bottom of the tub so we could explore those rust areas and see how bad this tub really is. I imagine it will still be way better than my old tub that is rusted in every floor, both rockers, around both wheel wells, rear valence, and has a rotten body mount near the filler neck for the gas tank (so basically my current tub is trash).
I haven’t mentioned it much in my posts, but I really enjoy when my family comes out to help me on my project. While I love working by myself it is nice to have help from time to time and my wife is pretty good with tools.
The original side steps were bolted in with three bolts each along with the trim bolts along the top. The trim bolts were pretty easy to remove, but the main support bolts were pretty tough. I ended up breaking the heads off of two of them just trying to twist them loose. The others came off with a little elbow grease.
Once we got the moldings off the rust spots became clear. I have 4 places that need to be cut out and replaced and one that just needs a little extra support welded in. I’m not sure how I’ll address these yet as I don’t have the welder yet, but I’ll figure that out soon. At the end of the day I have confirmed that this tub is better than my old one so I’m going to be swapping them out. That gives me the direction I needed on what tools to get next.
Check back soon for more…