Gotta love it how what you think will be a quick patch job turns into a major project. Looks like I know what I'll be doing over the holidays. Any helpful tips would be appreciated.

I took my hatch seal off to have a closer look at the rust bubbles and half the lip came off with it.



This section that I've cut out was completely rusted through.



Both lower quarters have a good amount of rust.

 

Clean out the drains with compressed air. Then poor brake cleaner or carb cleaner down the drains. Then spray it out again. Man thats alot of rust.... Im no good at body work though..


I wonder if I could put a rear seat in my model? hmmmm , that seems possible in the future...

 

I know about the drains.

This rust started long before I bought the car. I have a feeling whoever painted the car last just filled any holes with filler and painted over the rust. That's why there was none visible when I bought the car two years ago.

 

Whats it like having a back seat? Can anybody fit back there? I am seriously gonna think about replacing the storage bens with seats if I can...

 

You can fit but it's not comfortable unless you're an infant or a midget.

Send me some storage bins and I'll send you a back seat.

 

Oh man that looks familiar. My quarters were alright, but the channel by the hatch was BAD! See my pics for how I handled it. What kind of body work experience do you have? What kind of advice would you like?

 

After taking another look at it I'm wondering how your wheel wells are? they are usually the first to start rusting, if the rest of it is in such bad shape you might wanna look elsewhere. The car in those pics I posted above had extensive rust just about everywhere. What kind of body work tools and skills do you have?

 

Considering the amount of work ahead of you and/or the body shop bill that would accompany the job should you yourself choose not to do it, you're going to be a lot better off just picking up a rust-free, straight FB roller for $500 and pushing that one off a cliff for Wildfire Videos...I've never seen rust like that at the back...even the junkyard cars don't have that kind of rust...

 

Well maybe the junkers don't look like that in sunny texas Up here you'd be lucky to find a junk yard car like that, some of them are baaaad. As you can see from my pics I had to repair much of what your have revhead. If you ever reply to this thread I'd be more than happy to give you any advice you might want Depends on how much you wanna do, although finding a better shell to start off with might not be a bad idea. I would have with mine, but its not really an option in the northeast....

 

Thanks, for the replies. I'm bringing a shell home today the appears to be dead straight and with minimal rust. Not even one dent on the floorpan or chassis rails where people usually jack it up. If it all checks out on closer inspection then that will be my new project. Otherwise I'll use it to cut the panels out. I'll keep you posted.

 

What did it cost, if you don't mind my asking?

 

$200AUD

 

lol...nicely done...

 

damn, Revhed! it's been 2 whole years already? doesn't seem like it. anyway, good luck with the repairs.

 

Looks like you came to a conclusion already but, have any of you tried P. O. R.-15. It will stop the rust from going anywhere else and makes the metal like new. For the holes that you have you can just put some fiber glass, make it smooth and then paint over it. Rust problem gone and no need to cut and weld new body parts. Thats what I did to my RX-4 anyways. Worked perfect and not ghetto for those that are thinking it.

 

Having seen how the Fibreglas-metal interface stands up to the test of time, I would never go down that route myself for any vehicle I prized...

 

Everyone on this Forum has heard of, and used, POR-15. We're pretty much using it as our sponsor.

 

I use por15 quite a bit, but it is certainly NOT permanent in any way, nor is the fiberglass method. There is simply no substitute for cutting out all the rusted areas and welding in new metal, that is the only way to do things as far as I'm concerned. Even sandblasting isn't a guarantee that rust will stay away, I've had rust show up on parts i've sandblasted, granted it takes quite a while, but it has happened. Again, don't get me wrong on por 15, used correctly its good stuff, I have a lot of it sealing up the bottom of both my cars, but I only used it after sandblasting the whole thing, used the por 15 as a good base to seal everything up. Good luck revhead, keep us posted.

 

The new shell is now completely stripped. It has some rust/evidence of repairs in the hatch channel but other then that and a few little dings it's extremely straight. I'm going to take the oportunity to respray it now before I swap everything over.

Any ideas on how to rustproof the problem areas in the lower rear quarter where the box section is? It looks like there might have been water in there at some time.

 

Are you talking about the area under the antenna behind the wheel wells?

 

That's the one.

 

Thats a tough one, if you have a sandblaster you could let it rip in there (not very easy given the small amount of space) and then seal it up with something good (por 15 seems to work pretty well on sandlbasted metal) Honestly thats the only thing I could think of, since that space is so small I don't think you could really get any kind of grinder or wire wheel in there, even the sandblaster is gonna be tough. How much rust is in there?