Hello all, i am new here and just bought a 1979 Miley 2 horse straight. I planned to replace the floor but am now up against some pretty serious rust at the front section. I would like to get some opinions on the best way to repair this. I have uploaded some pics in hopes to give a better idea of what i have to deal with. of course the goal is to make sure the horse being hauled is as safe as possible whether it's 2 miles or 200 miles. I should have known this was going to be a bigger project than anticipated. Even so, I feel I got a good deal on it and figure even if I put $500 into it I can easily get that back out when it comes time to upgrade. Not to mention this type of project is new and interesting and i get to learn something in the process.

This is looking at the front of the trailer from the inside, i marked LIP with an arrow where the original floorboards rested. They also rest on the piece of angle iron which is back about a foot but they were originally screwed down on the lip
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k203/PNWsnowninja/HorseTrailer/th_102_5029.jpg

Closeup of the middle section:
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k203/PNWsnowninja/HorseTrailer/102_5030.jpg

A bit more zoom on the middle section - you can see the deterioration good in this one:
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k203/PNWsnowninja/HorseTrailer/102_5032.jpg

I set the old board on the lip to give you an idea what it looked like with the floor in place:
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k203/PNWsnowninja/HorseTrailer/th_102_5033.jpg

here is one from underneath - the drawn in red is the floorboard. some blue tape is holding some bubblegum looking sort of stuff, i guess this was the previous owners attempt to fill the rusting holes.
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k203/PNWsnowninja/HorseTrailer/th_102_5034.jpg

And this is from the front underneath as well. the section where the wiring is attached is the main part of the frame, the lip section is welded onto that. from what i can see the main section is ok.
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k203/PNWsnowninja/HorseTrailer/th_102_5035.jpg

So the question is how do I replace/repair that rusted section up front?

Thanks!