1961 PV544 Project - Update 3

Where to start? I thought that I may as well try to understand what I truly had and not simply what I thought I had. So, having said that, I dug into the interior and removed all the transported stuff and then removed the seats. As the original grey rubber floor mats and jute underpadding were gone (PV's didn't have carpet), I had an unobstructed view of the floors and the area behind and below the rear seat. Didn't look too bad - at first glance.

I proceeded to sweep/vacuum up the loose debris (including peanut shells and accompanying mouse droppings) and then used a halogen lamp for a better look. A few things jumped out at me at this point:

1) three of the floor pans still had the factory asphalt sheet sound deadener but the driver's front did not. 2) all the surfaces had been coated (even over the asphalt sheets) with some sort of flat black material. 3) Some of the floor edges had been treated with some sort of thick additional coating - a bit ominous...

I believe that one of the previous owners (likely near 30 years ago) had "finished" the floors in preparation for completing the car. I suppose that I could have left them as is but my gut told me that I needed to explore further. Here's what transpired over the course of many hours:

Passenger side rear pan before
Passenger side rear pan in progress after stripping off the asphalt sheet - all done with a putty knife.
Passenger side front pan before. Note the right edge coating.

Passenger side front in progress. Arrows indicate some sort of rubberized mastic coating along the outside edge that was almost impossible to remove. Heat didn't help as it turned the stuff to goo which meant cleaning the knife constantly and the fumes were ugly. The best method turned out to be sharpening the putty knife to a razor-like edge then working it under the material.
What I found under the mastic...
Rear driver's side pan before. Arrow points to more of the mastic material. Hmm..
What the mastic stuff looks like on the back side. Talk about a cheesy repair!
Driver's side rear pan in progress.
Inside corner where the mastic was. I also had to use a Dremel to remove body filler that was smeared into the entire area before the mastic went down.
Driver's side front pan before. This is the pan that didn't have the factory asphalt sheet. I also noticed at this point that the stiffening ribs didn't match the passenger side.
In progress.
Mastic material was removed from the outer edges. The arrows indicate evidence of post-factory welds.
Rear outer corner.
Back to the passenger side rear after more aggressive cleanup including the removal of all factory seam sealer around all edges.
Passenger side front.
Driver's side rear.
Driver's front totally stripped. Obviously that pan had been a mess and needed total replacement sometime in the past. As I said earlier, likely somewhere around thiry years ago (1980). The residue you see in the photo was the result of more than a few wipedowns with lacquer thinner to remove the coating.

Next step (in progress now) is to do the same under and behind the rear seat area.