OGFC

Now I have some major rust under my doors(rocker area). My plan was to cut all the rust areas out. Tack up some sheet metal or wire mesh behind the area.(because i cant weld). Then fill it in with some bondo or body filler. Does this sound like it will hold up alright? Any tips would be appreciated.

Eva001Ikari

iTrader: (7)

Sheet metal? you say you're going to cut them out huh..... For some reason that does not sound like a good idea, i mean sure you can do it but it would probably cause some problems. You know putting bondo on **** like that doesnt always cut it. If its a quick fix you're looking for it sounds fine if you are just waiting on buying another door or something. Your best bet though would be to just find someone to do it i guess.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Major rust in structural areas absolutely requires welding.

So no, chicken wire and Bondo won't do.

My advice...find someone who knows what they're doing and pay them to fix it.

Don49

iTrader: (3)

+1 on repairing it properly by cuttting out the rust and welding in new metal. The rockers are structural to the car and fixing it with bondo will not work other than short term cosmetically. You will be doing more harm than good with the bondo method!

YaNi

iTrader: (2)

+1 for real metal

If I, a poor college student, can do it, you can too.
Fiberglass doesn't bond to steel, so eventually the mechanical bond breaks and it falls apart.
Don't use the word "bondo" in or adjacent to a sentence containing the words "structural intergrity."

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

That's only a cosmetic repair and will start to rust again in a few years.

If you are going to use something that isn't metal, use fiberglass. Cut out ALL the rust and then paint the area with a rust preventive paint (POR-15, ZeroRust, etc.). Then use fiberglass to fill in the damaged area.

The best repair is to cut out the rusted sections and weld in new metal. The rockers are a structural part of the car.

OGFC

Well I bought the car for $440. Its a 88 GTU. It has 213,000 miles on the chassis, approx. 30k on the rebuild. It has pacesetter headers,presilencer and catback. The PO had used as a winter beater. So it has severe rust everywhere(even on the hood). I mean the rockers are rusted through. It looks like it has been repaired once. I pretty much bought the car to crave my rotaries needs until i find that special turbo one day. So im gonna give it a go and hope the car doesn't break in half. haha Do you guys think maybe some por15 epoxy putty will do the trick?

YaNi

iTrader: (2)

I can't see any of the holes being small enough to patch with the putty. When I replaced mine I had to cut out the lower half of the rocker, the pinch weld, and a 6" wide strip of the floor pan.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

The putty is good stuff, and with a mesh background will fill some big gaps. But it will never be a structural repair.