The floor is ate through right where the battery sits and a little place right in front of it. Before I put a battery in it, I wnat to fix this. What metal is best to use to repair this and would riveting it to the metal work? Any help would be apprecaited.

Ask yourself how good the rest of that side of floorboard is.  They all need to be welded in, so you don't want to do the small piece, then have to do the rest later on.  Riveting could be done, but it is a temporary solution at best.

I have a similar problem and I am just going to "patch" it for the time being by riveting some aluminum printing plates into the existing floorpan and then sealing it with silicone. It won't win any prizes at a show but it'll suffice until I can save for new floorpans. Someone else may have better info but it has been my limited experience that the best way to replace the floorpans is to remove the entire body from the frame or chassis. I may be mistaken but I think that is the only way to really replace a floor pan and then weld it in.

When I looked at again tonight, the worse is where the battery is, then there is a split in the back passenger floor board, it pushes back togeather, but it is broke through. Not ever seeing except for looking at the pictures of the floor pans they sell on the internet, I guess the battery pand is different from the long floor pan. It almost sounds like I need  two differennt pans, A battery one and the floor board one.
Does this sound right or can one cover both. never knew some things could be diffacult.
Ron

Just to share a couple of general observations I've made from owning 25 or 30 bugs over the last 8 years (most of them were junk . . . and the rest were real pieces of $&^@!) . . .

   1.  Battery trays love to rust.  It's what they do best.  Unless you do something to protect the new pan from the effects of the battery it's going to rust out too.  It's not real uncommon to hear about someone loosing a battery out of the bottom of their Bug.

   2.  Bug floor pans RARELY rust from the bottom.  If you want to know the true condition of the pan you have to look under the carpet.  I've seen pans that looked like new from the bottom and a couple of months later the seat fell through!

You also need to know that all floor pans are not created equal.  The best ones will cost two or three times as much as a cheap one . . . and might be 4 or 5 times a thick!  A cheap one will work, but won't hold up as long and the seat tracks on cheap pans are a joke.  And yes they make full sides (just like the original), quarter pans (front halfs and backs of one side), patch pans for the battery tray, and if you look hard enough you can sometimes find patch sections for other areas of the pans.

If the rest of the floors are in pretty good shape, you might be better off patching the battery tray unless you have the time and money to do it right . . . remove the body, remove the old pans, clean up the tunnel, weld in new top of the line pans, seal all the seams, then prime, paint and undercoat the whole chassis.  If you want to patch it, the best thing to do is buy a battery tray . . . it's just a small section of the full pan that covers the area that typically rust out.  If you are good with a mig or tig welder and take your time marking, cutting fitting, welding and grinding, you can make the patch undetectable.  Or, you can just cut out the rusted area and epoxy the new battery tray down on top of the old pan.  Seal and paint it good and give it a good undercoating and it'll show from under the car, but it'll still be very functional.  I've even patched them with fiberglass.  It'll keep your battery off the ground, it won't rust, and it's quick and cheap . . . but it looks like $**t!

Bug-Me Videos has a Video on replacing the pans that everyone I've talked to who has watched it says is great.  I think they show how to replace the pan without removing the body and how to do it right (remove the body) . . . it might show installing a patch in the battery tray, but I'm not sure.

I've replaced the passenger side pan in three cars and drivers side in one . . . I installed them all without removing the body and used pop rivets to hold them in.  All of them were cheap pans too.  One pair of pans I bought from JC Whitney set me back $72 (for both pans) including FedEx ground shipping.  This kind of repair is a double edged sword . . . it's quick and cheap, doesn't require any special tools or skills and it's better than dragging your battery down the road.  However, you can forget ever getting your seat to adjust (if you ever get it beat on to the joke of a seat track to begin with) . . . and plan on doing it right the next time you have to replace them.  That'll probably be within 5 years.

Quick question, if I get a floor pan that does not the seat rails or jack support, are the factory ones bolted in/on and removable?
Seen where JC Whitney sells either a Passenger's Side 27"L Rear Floor Repair Panel Insert or a Passenger's Side 36"L Rear Floor Repair Panel.  Hopefully one of these would take care of the battery. maybe the 27" insert? Again the rest of  floor is in decent shape, just think the battery acid did some damage to that area.
Thanks
Ron

This is Whitney's 27" patch:


This is the 36" patch:


Both of the ones shown are for the driver's side . . . it shows the same picture for both sides, but they are actually mirror images of each other.  But that's not important here.  Notice that the 36" pannel has a raised up lip with holes in it on one side and the 27" one doesn't.  Also look at the rear of the pan in your car . . . that back part of it that raises up and bolts to the body.  That piece is on the 36" pannel but not on the 27 pannel.  If you take the 36" pannel and cut about 6" off of the end of it nearest the front of the car, trim the raised up lip off the edge, and cut the rearmost upright piece off of it (it's actually an separate piece of stamped sheet metal that is spot-welded to the main bottom section), you end up with the 27" pannel.  The raised lip and the rear section are almost always the last part of the pan to go . . . if you're going to install the 36" pannel, you might as well spend a little more money and get a good quality full pan and pull the body . . . 'cause it's a real pain in the rear to install that rear section without completely removing the body! (Ask me how I know )  If you just use the 27" patch, you don't have to mess with the jack point and seat tracks.  The 36" piece won't affect the seat tracks, but you will have to remove the jack support from your old pan and weld it to the new one . . . and if this is a typical ultra-thin Brazilian pan (it's from Whitney, so it probably is), good luck with trying to weld to it!

Personally, if it's just rust under the battery, I'd go for the patch . . . I'd cut out all the bad stuff, then trim the patch pannel to fit with just a little overlap and install it with pop rivets and epoxy.  Seal it, paint it, undercoat it.  Check it from time to time and if more rust starts appearing, clean it up, treat it and re-paint it.  It should last for years.  But, if you don't want a patch that shows from under the car, your best bet is to do it right and replace the whole pan.

Here's a page with a better picture of floor pans from BFY Obsolete Parts:

http://www.bfyobsoleteparts.com/xcart....&page=1