How bad was it, where was it, and how did you fix it?

I'm trying to gear-up mentally for a project. I have no welding/fab skills at the moment, so I have a lot to learn. Looking for inspiration as to what is possible. Pics would be sweet.

Thank you for any help.

 

worse on a camaro or worse ever?

Worse on a camaro would have to be rear quarters. Worse ever all I have to say is Chevy Vega because they rusted in the show room.

 

Worst on a Camaro - Entire left floorpan, lower a pillars, and about half of each rocker. I had to brace every thing before I cut anything, for fear that once I cut the rocker the car would collapse. I must have measured the door opening on each side 50 times Cant tell I did anything now, and there isnt a spot of rust on the car.

Worst Ever: My 53 chevrolet truck. Entire floor, cab corners, rockers, the firewall about 8 inches up, and everything else. This one isnt done yet though. Its been put on hold untill I get my Camaro done.


Just take you time and you will be fine.

 

TTT for more stories and pics.

 

Worst 3rd gen is the 'bird I'm working on now, I could go Flintstones on the driver's side. I've got that repaired, but I still really should hit the whole underside with POR-15.

Worst rust I've ever dealt with was on an 86 Monte Carlo, with the whole floor pan rusting through, the rear frame rails seperated from the car, and the front bumper almost rusted off. But... that went into a demo derby. I dunno if smashing it is "dealing" with it, lol

 

How did you fix the floor pan? I have the same problem on both sides on my 92 Firebird.

 

There's 2 ways to fix it really. One method is to remove a section of floorpan from a decent donor shell and weld/glue that in. I simply used scrap sheet metal and put that in the hole (after cutting away all the rot), then used fiberglass to try and give it some of the original contours of the floor.

My method makes it easy to tell when you look under the car, but if that doesn't matter too much, its also a very cheap method.

 

both rear quarters, both rockers, drivers floor pan, spare tire well, hood, and all the edges had to be made by hand. that cars being parted soon
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i have lots more pics if you need them, but today im too lazy to upload. the top 2 is cutting away, the bottom one is a finished rockr

 

worst rust ever would have to be every part of the car hidden by, carpet, moldings, plastics, motor, and even paint in some cases, there are only two ways to tackle the problem. 1. gasoline and a match [i love my third gen] 2. a **** load of money [ i am not a fan of bondo especially the 1/2 inch that was covering 90% of my car oh well

 

Yeeeahhh, this is the kind of post I'm talking about. I love the pics. The last one is the exact area I have to deal with (one of them at least). It's pretty scary to tackle since there are so many curves, angles, and bends. If you do have more pics, I'd love to see them, but I do understand the hassle of uploading a ton of images. Thanks for your time.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...-pan-help.html

that was my before pics. i never took any of the finished product but I cut the entire floor and frame pieces out of a shell car and welded it in. I painted the entire undercarraige with POR-15. my floor and frame is now stronger and more rust free than when it was new

 

Thank God I live in California...
No rust here

 

I am working on mine now, I currently have no floor at all on the drivers side of the car, i have both new floor pans ready to be welded in but i am doing one side at a time to try and preserve some structure.. I am also tackling both rockers at the front where they all rust out and will be doing a quarter panel skin once i finish the floor....

I have no prior fabrication, body work or welding skills.. just trying to learn as i go along.. Look on page two of Userchemicals floorboard thread for some pics of my car... I really need to get around to starting my own thread but you know how things go sometimes....

Cheers,
Richard.

 

ive fixed alot of the notorious mopar b bodies.........ive done some that need to be on a jig to fix, some on jackstands......the main thing is not to try and patch it up.......it just looks like crap and makes problems down the road...........now if its like a quarter sized hole, its cool to patch and grind it down.......homemade replacment panels usualy look like crap.....so cut one from a rust free car, or buy a replacement

 

This doesnt help much, but this was my first car. I had it for 4 years, it was the project that was never started. And when i finally decided to pour $500 into it to get it running, i discovered this..... When the guy putting this in went to remove the x-member, he put an impact wrench to the bolts, and instead of the bolts coming out, this fell apart.





It was deceiving cuz the floors were perfect. The only hole was in the driver side floor, and that was because of a pool of water that had collected before i bought it from an open window and a rain storm..... The rot was sort of sealed with undercoating, and it looked like it rotted from the inside out.


This is how i fixed it..... (free tow to the wreckers). It COULD have been fixed, but for what i had into the car, and the amount it would have taken to fix the berlinetta JUST to get it running (not even performance built) was just not worth it.


I like preventative therapy myself.

 

ur right, especially with the abundance of cheap third gens today. its cheaper to just find a non rusted car than spend a bunch of money to fix a rusted one. The opposite is true with 1st gens though

 

There was this little hole under the passenger rear wheel well,.......










The car was a V8 5-speed with T-Tops so I didn't want to scrap it. I cut a scab from a donor car and then had to cut the scab in half and install it as 2 pieces. The hole ran from the rear seat belt bolt hole to the middle of the spare tire storage area.






Let me be clear about the project above; I had no prior experience other than 9th grade metals class over 20 years ago. I did EVERYTHING BUT the actual welding on this project. After completing this project last season I bought my own MIG welder early this spring. Still to busy to use it - but not afraid too ! ( at least I wired the 220 receptical into the house already ! )

The car turned out pretty nice........ I just saw the car and it's new owner the other day at a local ThirdGen event ( To bad we missed you BULL ! )