When i was relocating my battery yesterday, i pulled out the bins and carpet.........................Sigh













At this time with the some of the issues under the car.....i don't think its worth fixing. I think the time has come to find another body. Its just not worth spending a few thousand dollars to repair the rust when i can hopefully and i stress hopefully find another body to transplant my motor into.

The interior of the car is good and all the lights and other items not related to the underside of the car are in good shape. Pm me if yah need anything!

 

Please FEDX me with some snow. its 80's right now in SOCAL

 

Wacky You made my car rust you ****** lol!

 

 

Sue the DOT, for using salt on the roads over the years causing your baby to rust away. Its worth a shot, everyone else sues for stupid stuff why cant we lol

but really, I hate to see that. It can be repaired with a little work, or if you can find a good RUST FREE body, then I would go that route.

Best of luck,

Matt

 

It's fixable, I'm dealing with the same exact thing.


$20 in sheet metal, $100 in various paints (por15, weldable primer, and lots of rustoleum/rubberized undercoating for bottom of car), seam sealer, and a friend that's really good at welding. We tried using my expensive gas shielded, 130 amp miller mig welder, but something wasn't right and the welds were not going as smooth as they should have. We ended up using his cheaper Hobart welder with flux core wire. It's going smooth, but I work too slow (I'm about half way done after a few months) Someone with more determination than me would have it done in a few weeks.
Consider yourself lucky, I have to deal with this too.


That required me to buy a parts car for the sheet metal. (and a GSL rear end too)

Speaking of which, the fenders are pretty good in the parts car, I could cut them out for you when I start recycling the car.

 

That isnt the only issue with car drivers frame rail right where it comes down in front has big *** hole in it. Drivers rear suspension link where it joins the pan has a big area around it gone. I am buy far no body man and it would cost me more to have it fixed than just find a roller or another fb for a a few grand!!!

 

Same boat, same rust. Rockers, too. Thinking about cutting the wells right out & replacing then with old bug fender bits or something that will fit in there. I dunno.
If I do it, whatever I do is gonna be big.

 

I dont know what to do I just got this turbo setup running good. i dOnt know if i should just drive it and let it rot or sell parts while i can! Few leads locally All really nice cars all around 2,500 all rust free. # of them to be exact. 3 of them also would be ashame to mod the **** out of! One is a nice sa rust free stored indoors one is a 83 scca track car all ready modded in its own right another is a 83 Black nice.

scca one comes with a garage of parts all of which i dont have room to store but if i bought it i could sell parts and pay for car. I just dunno Sigh
I mean where talking two 3 engines tranny irons houseings bucket o carbs etc etc everything a race would aquire over ten years of racing










The sa is so nice i couldnt touch it that and i cant get ahold of the guy anymore!

 

thats sad man. i know how it feels with the capri me and my buddy own we had to make whole new floors ect.

 

Damn Ben. I hate to see that. The good news is you have a killer drive train to put in another shell. Just look for one with a pooped engine. If you wasn't too far, I would make you a good deal on my SA.

 

If I was in your situation I'd weld in some panels "quick and dirty" style and just run the car. It would be stiffer than stock, not be a lot of work, and nobody will see the rust. You didn't even know you had any until you removed the storage bins. You're making things way harder than they need to be.

 

What about the issue where the rear link mounts to pan??? the whole front area where the bracket goes to is almost gone? so your saying patch the holes after por 15 and run with it? Jeff only concern is i have a widebody on the way and dont know if its worth to mount that on my car and paint it. These are the issues at hand. Is it worth to patch and fix even with these issues? then there is several other aspects under the car as well. i havent even taken the seats out to see whats under there

 

man just fix the rust keep your turbo setup and make it happen....it's just takes a little time and work is all...don't go start selling stuff to buy another car and then sell more stuff to buy the stuff back from the old car...makes not logical sense at all

 

you could just say screw it remove the Mazda rear end and build you own setup and while doing it repair the rear end and make it stronger it would be more time and more money but it would turn out to be stronger then a new car rust free. i under stand there is a slot of work involved. but its a shame to see you do so much work to that car then have to turn it in to a parts car let alone another rx going to the junk yard.

 

+1 on that...

 

The drivetrain wouldnt be for sale i would just part out the body Everything is fine until you look under the car. I dont think you guys have any idea how bad a car rot's in wisconsin. Out side looks great peak your head underneith and start tapping around finger goes right threw lol. Do you relize in the city i live in alone they dumped 500 tons of salt in a winter season are city ran out this ear and had to get some from minnesota! I appreciate all the thoughts thats why this board rocks the house on the other hand i am no body man i am a mechanic buy trade and hobby!!! I have no access to welders really or anything related to metal!

You guys in cali have it so good you dont even relize what rust is really. YOur rust can be removed with sandpaper lol. park your car next to the oceanside for a year and thats what the underside of mine looks like! I know i used to live on the shore in philly!

 

Just fix it. - I did
Or buy that black beauty and start swapping, it's not like there's a shortage of RX-7's

 

I agree you should fix it, not very hard just takes some time and patience and you can do it. I've done it on several cars so far and never had a problem with the upper control arm mounts breaking or anything....

 

I will remove carpte and seats after work and check out what the rest of its like thanks guys!

 

i drove my first rx7 for months with both of the rear links ripped from the body

 

I'm looking at similar issues, just needs a few pieces of steel welded in AFAIK. Not looking to hijack, but does anyone have recommendations on a welder / steel? I have a 240V line that I'd like to use, partial to MIG/TIG and I was guessing that 1020 HR would do fine.

 

I had to do the same thing a few years back to one of my fb's wasn't too bad

 

iam a welder by trade, by law in most states your spouse to only mig weld stuff like this(at least this is what my welding teacher said) the reason behind it is that any bone head with a few hours of trying to lay beads can do it.

yetterben you would be able to fix this on your own trust me. mig welding is not that hard. you can rent a mig welder at most places that uses gas and can be plug in to a normal house hold out-let so you wouldn't have to worry about getting a plug put in to your house just to use a welder that you rented.

if you can find a place to rent a welder, my step dad's work sells welders and i can see if i can get you one at cost plus shipping ect. it would be what i call a lunch box welder, it really is just a little bit bigger then a old school lunch box you have to use flux core wire which is a little messy.

just rent the welder and get some metal thats the same thickness as you going to be welding pratic just laying a bead. i can post pics of correct mig welding beads.
once you able to weld a bead try a butt joint weld.thats when two edges of metal are butting up against each other. then once you get that down maybe one peace ontop of another so on edge in the center of the bottom plate. once you get that down you should be able to weld on your car. this should take a day to get down.

grind away any metal that is flaking away. and surface rust can be covered with the paint that turns rust in to primer.but make sure you use a wire wheel on it then wipe it down with a cleaner. that pant stuff works great. any areas that are gonna be boxed in ie inside a frame rail ect spray with that weld tho primer. also any plates you use to cover a hole spray the back side with and any area thats going to be over laped.

trust me you can do it you self. my buddy never welded befor we bought our rs turbo capri. once we removed the carpet we saw how bad the rust is. i replaced that drivers floor pan. the passngers side was not that bad so we just cut out the rust and i had my friend weld those in. icompletly reset the welder control's gave him a pic and told him to mess with the machine till he got his bead to look like the pic. after a hour he got the hang of it.

if you want welding tips i can give you my number, if you have skype we can talk for free. or i can send you tips in pm's. try your hardiest to save this car. when your done with it youll be glad that you learned how. think of it this way if you got another rx7 some day youll have to do it or try to find another rx7.

 

I can weld that not the issue i will have to look into buying a chepo welder for a few hundered bucks or renting one. **** i have welded before with 4 or 5 battery daisy chained together with a stick rod Thats ******* ghetto but it works too!