I have an 86 SC, with typical New England winter rust. Door bottoms are rusted pretty bad. Hood has a little rust. Rear deck lid has a little rust. Fenders have a little rust. Quarter panels have a lot of rust. There is even a rust spot on the windshield pillar. I don't know anything about body repair, so sorry in advance for the dumb questions... What do you recommend for rust repair? Is it better to buy new body parts online? If so, what are the preferred places/parts? My hunch is that I'd be better off replacing as much of the body as possible. My neighbor was recommending fiberglass replacement parts, do they make those, and if so, are they better/worse than metal? Thanks in advance for any advice!

From what I've seen the pinch welds and/or seams tend to draw up salt and can rot out places like the rockers from the inside out. Also the floors commonly rot out as well. I would check these to ascertain how much rust you are looking at repairing.

You can get fiberglass fenders doors and hoods but they are race grade they don't fit that great.And the doors are hollow so in a wreck your dead.If it was me i would find a donor car to use as parts or put your good parts in another shell.

Your car sounds like mine. You never mentioned the floors though. If your car suffers from all of the other rust problems, your floors are probably spent too. You might want to re-evaluate if it's worth repairing the body. The last thing I want to see is another 3rd Gen get scrapped, but it doesn't make economic sense to fix these cars if they're too far gone. I had to strip and scrap my 86Z because the body just wasn't worth repairing safely.

Unless there is a lot of sentimental value with your car, you might want to look for a better body. I just found a clean 88 shell for $300 that all the parts from the 86 will be going into.

I also picked up a 85Z with a rust-free body for $600. There are much cheaper options out there than spending a ton of money on bodywork.

sleepsinshed: Yeah, definitely sentimental value, as I'm the original owner. I have over 300k miles on it, and I just spent $1,900 for a "new" Jasper transmission. I plan to keep it running as long as possible, unless it's totaled in an accident or something.

For the price of the new transmission, I could have just bought an old 3rd gen replacement car.

I don't want to spend $10k on show car quality body/paint, but I'm fine with spending somewhere around $2k+ to make the body solid again, and an average paint job.

So it sounds like fiberglass is out, no one is recommending that.

How about this: I checked out a website called camarosandclassics.com, and they have metal fenders for $100 each, and quarter panel skins for $100 each. So that's $400 for new metal fenders and quarter panels. Seems like a smart idea to me, rather than screw around with patching up the 23 year old fenders and quarter panels.

I'm sure I could find a hood and deck lid somewhere too.

Does that sound good, or is there some downside that I'm missing?

You'd be better off getting the replacement parts from a junkyard. You can probably find rust free parts and they will fit easiest. Aftermarket sheet metal tends to need some work to be perfect.

I agree on getting panels from a junkyard or getting them from someone parting out a car.

Seriously check out your floor pans, subframe rails, and rocker panels before you sink a dime into that car. If it's solid enough to raise the car with a floor jack, then you're safe. If the floors make scary noises while you're jacking the car up, then let the car go and get yourself another shell. My brother has an '82 Camaro with 82k original miles on it; body is poor but workable, but everything underneath the car is TOAST. We put a jack under the car (on subframe, right by transmission crossmember) and ended up pushing the driver's floor up two inches. Needless to say, this thirdgen is getting scrapped.

If your frame and floors are good, then I'm with these guys: check out the junkyards for rust-free parts, first. Brand new steel door shells, as far as I've seen, are $450 and up (central NY area). No glass or mechanicals included.

Quarters would be worth getting new, though. Just about any quarters you find in a junkyard around the Northeast U.S. will have some sort of rust going on, at least on the inside of the panel. Few exceptions from what I've seen around my area.