i have been on these forums for a while and im curious to ask fellow members about the conditions of there cars....rust i mean....

i have a 83 with holes at the ends of the rockers in the rear wheel housings,
had alot of surface rust under neath the car (wire brush and converter, followed by generious underbody coating)
and i have just a few holes through metal here and there.

How much rust do you guys find amonst yours and if so, how did you fix it and how long has the repair held up?

or if you havent fixed it, how long have you driven or had the car with the rust?

 

pictures and horror stories are welcome.

i think my car is pretty bad...i just want to see if anyone has done one better....or worse...take it as you see it

 

1979 only rust i have is surface rust under the brake booster from the brake master leaking on previous owner.

1985 parting out, from what I can tell there is no rust on that one either.

guess west side is the best side... ha ha

 

Check out this thread about severe rust repair by one of the few who tackle rusty cars.

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showthread.php?t=624258

RXDad

 

Has anyone tackled the common problem of rust at the forward mounting on the rear link arms? I.E. behind the rear seat, where the seat has to come out to weld?
Anyone got any pics of how to repair this area?
Mines not too bad but when I take the rear wheels off I can see it starting to crack at each side, (cracking on that reinforcing plate in the wheel arch).

 

I have a 1980 20th Anniversary RX7 with plenty of rust. I'm in Alaska though, so I guess this amount of rust on any older car is typical due to the salt heaped onto the roads during the winter.

Here's a link to mine.

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation-specific-1979-1985-18/front-fender-repair-question-747408/
Aaron
Anchorage, AK

 

Most of the RX7's I have seen in Australia get rust at the base of the rear hatch. Mine also has some above the passenger side window frame. I am not sure if that is common or not.

 

little hole big rust. I picked up an 84 last summer that had a little rust in the rear wheel well or so i thought. turns out i ended up with a 6"x 8" hole into the storage bin area stopping just short of the upper shock tower and all the way into the lower cross support beam. anyhow I got out the grinder, welder and sheet metal. well that was last summer and it's about repaired and ready for coating with POR-15 . from what I have read this is pretty common with first gens. but It can be repaired. Good Luck.

 

I'll try to post some pics. monday. would tomorrow but it's tax time in here in the states and the wife is outa town. So I gotta go pick her up, go to the tax office. wate 3 hours because 30 other people wated till the last min. to file as well. Ohhhh then go shopping for shoes for the wife with the refund. LOL.. well that's OK I'll RX7 E-Bay later and see what goodies are there.

 

My wheel wells rusted out bad enough that the upper links for the rear end ripped out of them. So I cut another big hole and put in a 3link, been driving it this way for about 2 years. Now that I'm done with college and have another good car I'm finally fixing it right.

 

Good God! That's a mean repair mate!
I do know that the rear wheel wells can rust but I didn't quite expect that result!
So I'd better get on with my little crack repairs pretty soon.
Anyone got any solutions less frightening? - Barl - forget the tax, rush me the pics man!

 

Hey that thread looks familiar

Coldy, thats one crazy tri link setup you got going on there, did you make that? How's it working out for you? Do you have a panhard set up as well?

 

The 3-link works great, just left the stock lower links and used a bigass turnbuckle for the 3rd link and cut some delrin bushings on a lathe. It has the stock watts link right now, but I'm making a new watts link to mount on the back of the rear end so it can be centered with equal length bars, and I'll be going back to a 4 link with adjustable height(instant center) on the top bars. Robert, rotaryshack, will be getting me some new metal from a california car to save me a shitload of time fabbing up sheet metal. I don't quite want to reveal my whole project yet.... but it's gonna be sweet.

 

Ah, come on, that's nothing for a Brit. I've seen someone restore an Austin Marina from a rusty 6in by 6in piece of steel from the inner fender well!

RXDad

 

here are the few spots i have had to repair on my gold 81...




for the record... i havent welded in nearly 10 years lol. i had to replace a large portion of the inner structure behind the quarter panel that i have replaced.
my daily driver on the other hand is a rust eaten nightmare... cant wait to get the bondo off that beauty and get working on that...

 

Morris Marina. It's stablemate was the Austin Allegro.
Both dire cars!
Thanks for the confidence Dad, but I'm no bodywork repairer. The thing is, I need to understand the necessary welding to the top link chassis bracket so that, if I don't do it myself, I can instruct a small body repairer in what to do. These cars are like hen's teeth nowadays over here - ain't many bodyshops worked on 'em.

 

i had rust in the rear wheel wells and they where big holes there is rust under the car. (no holes there) where the muffler is. heat shelds. front right infront of the cluch. all fixed but still doing rust repair under the car.

 

Well tried to post the pics but don't have software to shrink them down to 100K as required by the post anyhow It's not much different from the fenderwell repairs above. Just get yourself a mig welder smaller flux core type is fine for sheet metal I got the small 220 volt model from HarborFreight.com for $250.00 last fall and it works great. with a little practice she'll look good as new.

 

sign up on photobucket and copy the link into here (as the direct link into the insert image prompt)

 

OK Barl, don't worry, there may be people in the UK club who have pics, I haven't tried them yet. This rust thread just caught my eye on this club. Thanks anyway.