Well. I got the car knowing it had rust. The person I got it from said it had ONE hole in it. Well it had about 9 holes in it. He put new t-top seals and didn't even attempt to remove any of the rust. So I finally get to use some of my new air tools now. yay..... Here are some pics.









Its bad. But not too bad. I am going to get a hood or something and cut the skin off of it and bend and weld. Wish me luck.

This is what the idiot tried to patch it with before. Its about as thick as a Pepsi Can.... Any he used wood screws also. What a moron.

 

looks good, you should take a few minutes to tidy up a bit, so you dont loose any of those new air tools. lol

 

That sucks! I hate living in the Rust Belt! Hows it look under your GFX? Nice car, glad to see that your fixing her, instead of parting her out. That rot isn't too bad, some other recent "posts" were really bad..."Too much Cancer?"

 

thats a lot better than mine , on the drivers side i can touch the carpet.
its missing about a square foot of metal on that side . and on the other side isnt much better. and my quarter is gone to . i hate living in missouri

 

from the looks of it u have your work cut out fo you, also i hate to say but check your fire wall, if the floor is that bad make sure you check all around in engine bay and under, behind dash, very common to have rust there before floor. might as well do it all now instead of later, I had to scrap my 92 sunbird becaus of this very reason. I started the check the rust then got serious about it then found giant holes not visible until dash came out. I had a gap where water was coming in across entire fire wall, bye bye birdie. unfortunatley there was no water trough to evacuate water, it just sat in place and rotted away my car.

 

Its just the floor. The moron I got the car from let it sit in high grass and the acids and moisture from the grass ate the floor. As for under my GFX its all good except the 1/4 gfx. The rest of the body is good. I have a 1 inch hole down from my strut tower (not on the tower thank God) After its all said and done I am still going to get sub-frame connectors because of its weakn'd state. I'm not going to put a 400hp monster in this. I am going to take the 3.1 out. I'll be happy with 250-300 hp range. I guy I work with has a 350 from a 70 something something SS. He wants $350 so I am going to grab that.

 

Ouch blue_iroc_z28: Thats just awful! Yeah that firewall issue seems to be a problem on many '78 to '92 GM vehicles.
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A friend's cousin bought an '80-somethin Olds Cutlass Supreme 307ci from some shady trailer park guy for $300. The thing wasn't even worth that in parts. He isn't the brightest bulb on the tree, so he never asked us to look at it first. He was excited about his first "Muscle Car". He opened the door and we saw it had a noticable sag to it. We thought it was a bad hinge. When my buddy opened the door to check...you could see that both the lower and upper door hinges were holding on by the good graces of God...LOL. The whole firewall was rotted pretty badly underneath.
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I've seen a few F-bodies with damaged firewalls and quite a few '78 - '88 "G" Body owners have reported water leaking into their cars from behind the dash. I guess that when these cars were assembled, there were large gaps along the two sections of the top of the firewall. The area where the screen is for the heater intake,(at the base of the windshield). They stuffed putty in there in large quantities, some cars more than others. As it ages, it cracks or falls off. If you open your car's hood, you'll see this putty on the side of the firewall, (where the fender meets the firewall). I've even seen fingerprints in this crap.
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Another thing is that if that screen is damaged or missing, leaves and other debris gets in there. It collects at the bottom of firewall and blocks the drains on the pass and drivers sides. A good idea is to take off that screen and put a garden hose down into the pass & driver's sides and run lots of water through it to clean it out. After the water runs out clean, (If you can), pull out your kick panels, then pull out the body plugs on each side, and pour some used motor oil in there to protect it from rotting worse. Try to you use a clean old Windex-type spray bottle for better coverage. Just make sure you put something under each side to catch the draining oil. Don't pour it down from the top like you did with the water or you might be cleaning oil from inside your car. Make sure you put those plugs back in and seal them up good.
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Best of luck to you both, Al.

 

o thats another thing my shock towers are pretty bad ,to no holes but some spots are deep . im just going to find a car with a nice body and drive train probs. and put all my IROC parts on it. ok hijack over

 

Good Plan!

 

My buddy had a 1991 camaro rs with t tops, car looked mint, but one day we decided to dynomat it, when we took the rugs out it had horible rot in the floors, the tunnle was gone! The t tops would leak water under the carpet somehow. The dang floors had an inch of water when we took the carpets out, EWW it stank so bad! We patched them perfectly took 2 weeks. Car was stolen and totaled 3 days after it was back together. What a waste!

 

Sorry to hear that! I hope the SOB that stole it gets ...... .. ... ... by Bubba hard!

 

87camaroman,

That really doesnt look all that bad. I'ed just find a new hatch though...

Did you hit the T-top seam with a wirewheel yet and see if there is much meat left on that area? If its solid but with a few pin holes you can clean it up good and put some AllMetal over it to fill in the pinholes. Then paint it with some ZeroRust or POR15 and be done with it.

 

it may be rust related, but its far away from third gens, but all of us seem to help each other here so im asking for help, im rebuilding a horse trailer that has minor rust on it (southern trailer) but i was wondering if anyone had luck sanding and area real good and using that black rust kill, i was planing on sanding the entire trailer, replacing some metal/and or bondo and priming it with black rust kill than painting it to match my truck....is this a good idea, and one that may work for third gen owners with rust problems, once again sorry to bring up trailers on a camaro site but it may help more than just me

 

Ah it's a bit of work, but nothing you can't do. I'll post pictures of my resto when I'm done I had some cancer spots like that, but there were in every corner of the floor. Again, not necessarily hard work, just a pain in the butt. The level of hardness of work is in direct proportion to the condition of the environment you're in haha. Sweltering or bone chilling environments can make the work take longer and be harder. Deffinitely sandblast everything (taking out the dash is recommended for this) and go over it with POR-15, you wont regret the cost or the work.

 

There isn't much meat left at all. I have a few spots where there is about 1-2 inches that are gone (on the lip part that the seal goes under). I was going to ask if any of you would know what to do about that.

 

Know anyone with a sheet metal brake?
Or maybe try making a patch like this... http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuild...out-brake.aspx

Or maybe cut the L shape patch of something else like an old fender or anything else that has the bent you need.

Then cut the T-top rot back to where its under the gasket and out of site. Buttweld your patch in grind clean.

Do that work last after you got some time with the mig under your belt.