I have a 1991 Z28 camaro as my daily driver. I'm only 17 so its my only car. I've been wondering how frame rust comes about, and what you do if you have it? I drive it year around, but I live in Oregon, so it hardly ever snows here. If it ever did snow, I wouldn't drive it to school, I'd just have my parents drop me off, so it would never be exposed to the harsh chemicals they use to clear off the roads. However, it does rain a lot here. Does driving a car in the rain lead to frame rust? If so, is there anything I can do to prevent frame rust?

 

Any exposed bare metal will start to rust, even if the car never leaves your driveway. The easiest way to prevent rust is to make sure you have no exposed metal, and if you do cover it. Either paint or undercoating will work. Not driving when there's rock salt on the roads will help keep the paint where it is.

 

The best thing to do would be to coat your sub-frames and floor pans with rust bullet or something similar. Rustbullet is one of the best ways to prevent and stop rust. I'm coating most of my firebird in it.

 

I'll have to jack it up some and look at the underside here in a few weeks to see how it looks. Thanks for the advise guys!

If there is considerable rust, what do you do to fix that? I don't want to ever have to sell this car or crush it, so I really want it to last.

 

You would have to be careful how you go about treating rust. It's important to know what you're doing so you don't trap water as that will lead to premature rust leading to the opposite what you're trying to accomplish.

The biggest problem with these cars is that much of the metal involved is sandwiched together and water infiltrates through capillary action bringing salt with it. Salt also gets in as a fine dust during the dry months of winter and also through the air when near the coast. Once the salt is in between the metal panels it's not possible to remove it and it sits there rusting it out over time.

When looking for it, many people don't realize that leaves can build up in the front fender and hold water there as well. You can see it when you open the door and look down at the bottom below the hinges. Ground effects are notorious for holding water where it attaches and if accompanied with salt will lead to the attachment holes rusting and becoming larger.