JUST MAKE SURE THAT THE NEXT CAR YOU GET, YOU GIVE A NICE EXTENSIVE RUBBERIZED UNDERCOATING.. BUT MAN, I WOULD HATE TO DEAL WITH YOUR SUSPENSION..

 

That's not entirely true...Improperly replacing a unibody panel can cause unpredictable behaviour in the event of a collision. Most unibodies are engineered with strength and weaknesses in certain areas an the FC is no differet....Of course, huge rust holes and missing floors are also a hazard so it's 6 of one half a dozen of the other. Also welding sheet metal can be a real pain if you don't know what you're doing. I've seen some serious hacks that looked GREAT on the outside but were disgusting and dangerous under the surface. With any major rust repair an experienced body person is a must have consultant....Of course wheel wells are generally no big deal.

Actually it's a LOT easier since you can pull the body off the frame and most of these older framed vehicles do not have things like crumple zones. And if it's really bad, you can always buy a new frame.

Yep...Just make sure to properly attach the crossmembers and pay attention to mounting points....

This thread reminds me of how much I HATE RUST. Having an aluminium daily driver is nice...

 

Isn't the daily driver a Honda Insight? ...I didn't know those were aluminum, must be nice

...maybe its time to look at Delorean's.... hooray for stainless steel...

...I think I'm safer off just buying a clean(er) chassis... I can't weld yet, and I don't have the money to sink into lots of bodywork right now... Plus, if I do crash (*knocks on wood*) I would like the chassis to behave like it was engineered to....

 

Well yea you can’t just go slapping body panels together You got to do it how the factory did it. Everything is replaceable the aprons and struts and pans all come out with spot welds and you can get the replacement or cut them from another car. Weld them back in same way. You defiantly don’t want to go about disrupting the crumple design of things like the aprons.

I did not notice any structural compromises from his pics. If the uni body itself is compromised it would be the time to look for a new car. That’s the point you would need a laser frame machine to fix the car right, not worth the money.

True, it all boils down to the man doing the body man. If you have a lift or chassis roller I think that would make it a breeze to drop the frame and work on it.


I hate rust to but not afraid of it. Wish I had an aluminum car.

 

glad my car has always been a california car

 

Yep. Aluminium, plastic in some areas and composite in others. Still looks mint after 6 years on the road (in salt).

While the body is stainless steel, the frame is a very thin steel that rusts like crazy when the epoxy cracks.

That's probably the best and easiest idea if you don't have the skill/equipment to repair. Plus with a new shell you get all the spare parts and you can do it right from the start (POR-15, then paint).

 

And remember when you go look at a car..take a jack stands, little mirror on a stick, magnet, screwdriver. Put the car up in the air look for rust hardcore, poke at the frame and dont just peck try to make the screwdriver go through the frame, use the mirror to see where you cant, magnet on the fenders to see if there just bondo filled and painted. Hell take up carpet if you have to. I do this everytime I look at a car.

 

I just sold my STi in preparation to buy an all aluminum honda. It's not an Insight though

 

im not an insight fan... too ugly, but i guess if gas is a problem and you dont care what the car looks like, then it might be worth it..

 

Without going too off topic, the Insight is the sportscar of hybrids. In many ways it parallels the eary RX-7s in that it is designed for one purpose in a true form-follows-function way. Besides, you can't argue with this:

 

does it really get 98mpg? cus I can get the guage on my moms car to read 60mpg, but then once you tap the accel, it goes way down....

 

That picture actually shows an average of 91.6 MPG over a trip of 98.3 miles. Mileage on the left, distance covered on the right. You cannot reset one number without resetting the other so it is impossible to cheat by resetting at the top of a hill and then coasting down.

Here's the trip to Rotary Revolution last year. From London to Indianapolis and back to Detroit on one tank of gas. 81 MPG over 800 miles.

 

LOL

That f'n hilarious.

Ok what you guys think for fixing these... sandblast for the most part and then use the POR15 and Rubberized Undercoating?

The BIG hole I am going to have professionally cut and then prolly POR15 and Undercoat it.

 

Aside from the hole the other rust looks minor. However hit it with a wire brush on a drill before you decide what to do with it. Sections that look solid can crumble when you start poking at them.

 

thats what happened with the hole... I started poking around at it and pulling off rust chunks next I knew my hand fit in the hole... I was like... YIKES... f'n ohio salty roads...

But also if you look at the placement of some of the rust you notice it was caused by a 4 point lift that crushed the metal.



oh well this summer all will be taken care of

 

Yup do what Aaron said.

That hole will have to be cut back to good metal and new metal welded in.

 

As plentiful as FC's are, it is downright silly and expensive to reconstruct a corroded body. Buy a rust free shell and Xfer the good components

 

FC's are hard to find around me in good condition. My time searching my time towing my gas is all money and comes out to be more then fixing some body rust. It al depends on your area and confidance in your work.

 

i want an insight

 

I think thats the plan...

...and yes, iceblue, time and gas are also money, but right now my time is dirt cheap to me, and my actually money is a little low... (funny how when you're going to school full time and not working, that seems to be the case... )

Thanks for the help guys... ...and who knows, I may use the chassis as a test bed for learning body repair... so it may come back to life.... but right now I want to do some serious building, and that would best start with a rust free chassis...

Plus I just found out that our emissions testing in Ontario is no longer a rolling 20 year limit, so that means that 88 and later cars will ALWAYS have to pass emissions tests (every 2 years, I think).... off to search for a clean 86 or 87 I guess...

 

I think thats the plan...

...and yes, iceblue, time and gas are also money, but right now my time is dirt cheap to me, and my actually money is a little low... (funny how when you're going to school full time and not working, that seems to be the case... )

Thanks for the help guys... ...and who knows, I may use the chassis as a test bed for learning body repair... so it may come back to life.... but right now I want to do some serious building, and that would best start with a rust free chassis...

Plus I just found out that our emissions testing in Ontario is no longer a rolling 20 year limit, so that means that 88 and later cars will ALWAYS have to pass emissions tests (every 2 years, I think).... off to search for a clean 86 or 87 I guess...


BTW, Aaron, thats some damn impressive mileage on that, the dash is kinda neat too... how do you find the digital speedo? (was just looking at the new honda civic with a digital speedo, for the GF, ended up convincing her to get a mazda3 though )

 

Yep, no emissions for my '86 (good thing with the bridgeport) nor my GSL-SE (yay for peripheral ports!). I'm very happy. And the Insight doesn't have to pass either so for the forseeable future emissions are not my concern.

As for the digital dash, I love it. Honda is one of the few to do it right. It's easy to read under all lighting conditions and has a hysterysis so that the numbers don't bounce around randmoly.

 

Just curious if that is US or imperial...
US Gallon = 3.78 L, imperial= 4.55 L, which is why canadian cars which use imperial gallons in advertising their mpg always seem so stellar compared to their american counterparts.
Really makes me prefer L/100km.

 

In general, that'll be in US gallons... A north american car that can switch between km and miles is probably going to use US gallons, rather than imperial

...I actually don't like L/100km, its the one thing from the metric system I could do without... and the reason is this: significant digits. When you see 25.1 mpg, you know thats how many miles you can go per 1 gallon, but when you see 7.1 L/100km, if you were to work it out to an equivalent km per litre, there is just less accuracy... If they could make it to 3 decimal places (7.133) or something, then I'd love it... but as it is, i hate it... 'cause +/- 0.1 L/100km is a much bigger range than +/- 0.1mpg (mpg to one decimal place is roughly twice as accurate....)

...that being said, fuel efficiency is kinda depressing to talk about when you drive an RX-7 (actually, even the 2.0L Mazda3 guzzles a bit more than I'd like....)

 

I would assume it's US gallons as the tank capacity is listed specifically in US gallons.