ok i've got a 90 rs 305 ,intierer is great engine,tranny its all good.exept for the body,rust on the wheel wells,floor pans along the bottom of both sides the hatch and behind my gas lid hatch(how did that get rusty anyway.)so im asking is it worth doing all that body work? ball park price?

this is the only photo i got right now i've got it parked for the winter.

 

If its not bad you can fix it yourself pretty easily, Just sand it down a little and cover it with por 15 then paint over that to match.

 

i'd say look around and try to find one thats rust free for cheap before you dump money into yours and just use yours as a parts car

 

here are some pics of the problems

 

#2

 

looks good here

 

not here

 

ouch... id say unless you are wealthy and willing to dump alot of cash into that badboy... id find a better shell.

and keep that as your winter beater.

 

my old 85 looked excellent from the out side, took the interior out, floors rusted through. i scrapped it found a better shell well worth it for the 1000$ you would spend on new floors you can find a good shell

 

Take out the motor, trans, etc and buy one of the rollers from down here. Oh yea, give me the rusted shell that ya have so I can have a cool project I've got offers from a couple guys for Camaro rollers, one was $1300 looked stock, the other was semi-built for the drag strip (skinny/fatty, cowl hood, can't remember what else) for $1800. I'd buy one of them myself - probably the drag one - but I need to sell some toys first so I have cash to actually buy the car And I'd really prefer a Firebird

Good luck with whatever you do tho

 

The floor is the only thing I see that's really of any concern. The rust around the gas door can be sand blasted away and filled without the need for new metal. Your fenders might be able to be saved, but they're cheap enough that I'd just replace them.

The floor pans are available, but it will be a fair amount of work to replace them, so to me, that would be the determining factor whether you'd fix the car or look elsewhere.

I'd also examine the bottom of the doors carefully. Often, at the bottom of the doors they rot out, but with the ground effects, you don't see it unless you're really examining them closely.

 

Seriously man , the floor ain't no problem just buy some metal sheet at a local hardware store , a good drill , some pop rivets , a rivet gun and some roof pitch . Cut this metal sheet so to fill the hole , rivet it put some pitch under it and a good carpet over it , problem solved it'll never come out again . That's what i did on my bird and it worked well . But if the frame is rusted...forget it . For the body rust you still can change the panels or do a body filler job...

 

I guess it all depends on what you want.

I can guarantee that if it looks that bad from the places you can see, your going to find other places tucked away that are in worse shape.

If your just trying to keep it together and have it look semi decent then sure, throw some new metal on it. If your trying to save it for good, its just going to cost you a lot more $$ than just finding something in better shape.

my .02 though

 

I say ditch it and find a better shell.

 

the only problem with trying to find another shell is that i live in the northern lp michigan. rust is every where. also i got a feeling that finding one w/o rust is going to be hard.

 

I live in upstate new york and it is def hard unless you got some money. You can find it though. I probably spent about 4 months looking for a camaro and finally found one without a spot of underbody rust. Incredibly solid body for 2000. The only thing is i wanted t-tops but it has a sunroof so that will do for now. It may take some time but it is possible to find something nice.

 

Ive got a rust free stripped chassis down in NC if someone wants it

 

Sell it buy a better shell.

 

I'll say fix it don't crush it...If you saw barrett jackson you know these cars in 30 years will worth 50 000$ +.

 

ya but if nothing is done to his car, in 50 years it will be completely rotted out...

 

well i just got my new job and i'll be making good money so i think i will sink the money into it. I wrecked my first third gen. it was a iroc. so i must make up for that one. i cant let another one go to the bone yard.

 

Congrats, can't wait to see some before & after pics

 

good call. Even though you have the rust it will be worth it once its finished and you can see that final product. Its soo nice to good looking nice camaros. No reason to boneyard another.

 

Took me a year and a half to find my Z28 that was stored in the winters. Just gotta be patient.

 

I got my T/A for $500 including the crosslace rims down in Delaware and it has very little rust on it. I had to transport it back up here, but it was still worth it. I'd hate to be battling serious rust.

 

I spent quite awhile looking for a car that had been stored winters. problem was, it sat out during the summers and freakin t-tops leaked and rotted the passenger floor board out. still thats a minor fix in the general scheme of it all.

I definitely wouldnt want to be fighting that kinda rust.

 

I decided to get a new shell, but my 85 z28 needed both floors and a ton of wiring work, even my painless kit was barely any help, it all depends, if it needs nothing other than the body work then do it and do it right the first time and never do it again, or if it needs other things ditch it and get a new shell

 

My suggestion is to use that car as the Parts car... it looks good but structurally its pretty much gone.

It will be cheeper in the long run to buy a nice one and start with that...

Not sure what engine is in it, but if its less than TPI, I would think its not worth restoring at this point in time.

John

 

in all honesty what you see is most likely the tip of the iceburg. my friend has a 91 RS that we did very extensive metal replacement on, once we pulled up the carpet we found the area behind the bottom of the fender was gone, the footrest was gone, as well as a fairly large hole hear the back seat, one wheel well had a football sized hole in it. it took alot of work cutting and grinding it all out, then we welded in patch pannels just cut from sheetmetal. and sealed up all the seams good. however the car also needed an engine at the time, which we had already had mostly installed by the time we found the worst of the rust. had we known all this was gone we probably woulda parted the car, but its too late now, we saved it.

 

I bought a Chevelle...always wanted another '67. Had it a few months and took the sand blaster to the trunk and blew a few holes in it because of the rust...and nothing rusts in Texas...but this one did....gave her a kiss and pat on the bumper and said goodbye.