I've been starting to wodner about this. It seems that if you got a Van Nuys car, you were in trouble ten years later. My Firebird had the underbody coated, and now theres barely a floor panel left, the wheel wells are gone, and the door almost has holes clear through. The doors have nothing to do with the underbody

A friend of mine has a '90 Sunbird, same problems. Except he can see road through the door and floor.

A quick look at the school's parking lot, another Sunbird of the same timeframe and a Van Nuys piece of work (checked vin) had the same problem.

Was there a problem with the undercoating at Van Nuys? I'm getting really mad seeing that the parts that weren't undercoated are in better shape than the parts that were undercoated.

On the flip side, my dad's Ford '90 Tempo was undercoated, and he only has a little rust comapred to the GMs of '90. Rust is expected for a '90, but having the wheel wells dissappear, or the doors disintegrate aren't exactly what I'd call expected wear.

It seems that the doors don't seal well, or seal in the wrong places, and water sits in crevices that should be sealed and aren't. Other '90 era cars don't have similar problems, and they were taken care of similarly in the same general location.

What I've been seeing on my car is the undercoating in the wheel wells somehow got water trapped underneath and caused everything to rust out. Only then does the undercoating fall off to reveal it's evil doings. By the time you notice soemthing is wrong, everything is wrong LOL

 

i think its just bad lucj that you found all of those cars, did you ever think that they van nuys was not the problem and that it was the owners, the owners of all the cars probably drove the cars in the winter and didnt take care of the car. thats probably what happened.

 

My '87 was a VanNuys car and it doesn't have rust problems. I was underneath the car last night and I was amazed that the thing didn't have a spot of rust.

Not to mention its lived most of its life in the Puget Sound area which as we all know, eats cars.

 

I just did some detailing underneath and it looks good as new! I feel bad for you guys in the snow states that use salt on the road. I would keep my car parked and drive a thrasher pick up in the winter.

 

The quality of the steel mattered more than the undercoating. Generally the quality of the steel in the 80s was **** poor compared to now, plus the modern panels have some pretty heavy galvinization.

 

Yeah, they do a better job of rust-proofing from the factory now. But for you poor folks in Ohio and other parts of the snowy east it is the SALT that has done you in

 

The extent of my rust problem:

 

That doeswn't look too bad.

I'll have to admit all of the cars I'm poking at were driven everyday, with no other vehicle to drive. And no one fixed the rust when it was easily fixable, so I guess the owners are at fault.... But still, how do you maintain undercoating? It looked ok until it fell off and the rust was already bad.


This looks bad. I'm having a steel plate welded over the strut towers and the holes patched up. I'm a poor HS student and a friend is welding it for free. Maybe in 5 years I'll get a new wheel well like I hsould be doing now.... But this willg et me through what I need it to get me through

 

whoa - thats a rust problem......

 

Mine is a Van Nuys car as well and has a couple trouble spots. I'd assume it was poor care from the first owner or something, or just sh*tty Ohio weather and road salt, lol. Worst spots are on the drivers rear quarter and the passenger door is coming apart. I'm sure the door was caused by bad weatherstriping. It's pretty dry and half there. And I haven't pecked around too much more, but my strut towers may be needing some metal. I hate rust, lol.

 

Yeh i freakin hate ohio weather i would move in a second. I had my front suspension detailed and my rear end what happened i got stuck in the snow once and had to drve it in the salt. Now my once nicley painted control arms and rear end r mostly surface rust now. Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! salt kills

 

Dang and I thought my 82Z was bad but, wow I just have to cut out and patch up my floorpans in the passenger side compartment.
Did the strut tower break apart while you were driving????

 

The only rust my 82 had was where the paint had flaked off on the roof, deck lid and a couple areas around the windshield. I don't see any rust under the car, was just under it 30 min ago lol. Everything is still nice looking

 

u live in CA also

 

Yup Doesn't mean cars don't rust to nothing out here though. I saw a 90 something Toyota that was out by the coast just covered in rust on the chassis. Up here where I live, there's plenty of cars around that are rusting out, we do get snow in CA

 

i guess u would in northern ca

 

Shoot, my parts cars are in better shape than some of those you describe... and I live in MI... The land of the salted roads, of course my cars do not see winter...

John

 

My 84 Z28 is from there (i checked the VIN) and she was sitting for about 2-3 years and there is just a little rust underneath, hardly any on the body....the underneath will take like 1 hour to fix not bad at all, maybe i got lucky.

 

MY '83 TA has no rust problems and it is from Van Nuys. The paint is crap, but there's no rust. It could be that it is a Cali car. Most Van Nuys cars went to Cali (duh), so they might not have been as prepared for Salt and other rust-inducing chemicals. I don't know, but I'm sorry for your problem.

 

The pic of the passenger side shows a little better of how things were when I bought the car. The struts were deader than dead. I took them out and they don't even exert and force. Thety stay compressed all by themselves. The drivers side strut came out last and I was mad and ripped the thing out taking the mount with it. There wasn't much holding it in, and it didn't take much ripping. I did drive it with the mounts like that though..... it handled better than some other cars I've rode in. Thats crazy considering those were the original struts on a 13 year old car with 291,000 miles on it.

My welder buddy is stopping by today with gridning tools (he didn't specify) to grind down to any decent metal. He's taking the sheet metal out to get plasma cut for free. Then hopefully by this weekend, the new steel will be welded in, and I can start putting the new struts in and chaging the shocks. I just hope everything is aligned enough to drive it 2 miles to the closest auto shop that does wheel alignment.

*this pic is of the passenger side. The driver's side looked somewhat like this until I gave the strut a yank without taking the brake hose clip off. The brake hose was not on the clip, that would have been bad.

EDIT: I just thought of this, but I might as well stick it here isntead of a new thread. A body shop estimated $1400 to fix those holes. That initially sounded like way too much, but after I got everything apart, it seems reasonable. Problem is, the car was $700 and I haven't paid that off yet, so I really can't spend $1400 quite yet

 

1400 seems reasonable when you consider the extent of that repair. Make sure you use strong metal to replace that old stuff. There is a lot of stress in that area. Good luck.