How concerned should I be with all of this? Am I looking at just replacing those brackets or it is it much more serious like doing a sub-frame overhaul? I dont daily the car and I dont plan to. The car sits in my garage now and I turn it on once a week.

 

Yeah that's rust that's worth being concerned about. It's probably worse than that when you get into it.

Hard to say if it's something that can be fixed by media blasting/treating rust/repainting, you don't know until you get the paint off and really see what you have. You may be time and money ahead just getting a good used subframe. Also you have the 94 up style subframe so you would need to get one from a later car.

Dale

 

That really rusty area is called the "trail member" but I can't seem to find any sort of information on specifically what it does. Any information you can provide?

 

I'm not an expert, but that rust looks pretty bad. As Dale said, you probably want to pull it apart and strip that paint away to see how deep it goes. The bubbling under the paint looks like either rust or a novice with an arc welder had a field day there.

I'd definitely investigate further if it were mine.

 

It's just more bracing they added in the 94+ subframes. You can get a 93 subframe but it won't have that, I don't think anyone ever documented how much better or what difference it makes.

That bubbling rust is just that - that's going to be pretty bad puffy rust. That doesn't look like a repair, it looks like rust .

I know Hawaii can be bad with rust sometimes if you are close to the ocean/salt air. It may be tricky to get a good replacement since you will have to get it shipped unless you get lucky and find one local, shipping it will be a decent amount since it's bulky and on the heavy side.

Swapping it out isn't the worst thing, probably a full day project, especially with impact tools, but the big question is if anything will be so rusted it will seize or break.

Dale

 

The car came from Japan and its only been here in Hawaii over a month (Ive had it for a year now). I was able to find the replacement “trail members” on ebay to replace but a whole subframe is going to be extremely difficult to ship to Hawaii. I might just remove the rear bumper and exhaust to get a better look at what Im dealing with and hopefully it isnt too bad. If it is, God help me 😭

 

It looks pretty localised, a decent fabricator could cut those sections off and repair on the car. Otherwise you're looking at a replacement subframe.

I've dealt with rusty FD's before, looking at that area I'd be checking the rest of the car over, particularly the rear end of the sills and front side of the rear inner arches.

 

When you get those "trail members" in I would say go ahead and make a day of it - grind off the paint and rust, get a spray paint that neutralizes rust and paint it black. Just follow instructions on the can.

Ideally you'd want a nice mint rear subframe with no rust but a) that will cost a lot to ship and b) I don't think it would make enough of a difference to be worth the cost. As long as the subframe is structurally sound just stop and remove the current rust and move forward.

But if someone on the island happens to have an FD they are parting out be ready to jump on the subframe

Dale