These pics are the passenger side front where the floo meets the firewall. The exterior pic is right behind the tire where the fender meets the gfx. Am I wasting my time? I realy want to save this car! Getting a rust free car and swapping my good parts is not an option at the moment (I cant buy another car and have it sit in front of my house unless I want a divorce ).

 

Interior pic

 

Cut out the rust, fabricate and weld in new steel. Mine had the same issue.

 

haha this is when you Figure out one of two things.

1. How Creative you are to make it work and look good.(whos going to see it? besides us since your going to keep us updated haha

2. If you've got the money to have someone else do it and possibly do worse than you could've in the first place.

do you have a mig welder? Your going to need one and i always prefer argon/co2 75/25 mix, I am ignorant with Flux core. and i refuse to learn. haha Your going to need some sheet metal from a Hardware store.. Sheet metal usually has oil on it when you buy it whatever you do if your welding it, don't use brakleen or Carb cleaner, any brands. Don't do it.

 

I have a welder and I'm already set up with 75/25. I was hoping to avoid the cost of new floor pans, but I think I'm going to have to replace them. So much rust... I don't really have the tools to fab the sheet metal my self either. So glad this isn't my daily driver!

 

hows the rear unibody frame rails in the wheel wells?

 

Not sure what you mean exactly. The frame rails under the floor are rusty. I'll know how bad when I cut some of the floor away tomorrow. I'll post pics.

 

Good luck on your project. No pun intended but im glad that there are people whos car looked worse then mine. I had alot of rust as well and I am still battling with it but have won the fight for the most part. I have two really bad spots behind the rear wheel in the the trunk area that I am going to get welded up this Friday. They are the worse spots on the car and I saved them for last lol.

 

yea in the rear wheel well, its a major support piece, they make replaceable ones set ya back $700 ea without shipping... Ive seen a few get quite soft, and this may play a roll in whether its worth fixing or parting. as i hate to say that... but hey rather be safe than sorry. http://www.rickscamaros.com/camaro-f...1982-1992.html

 

is that what the lower control arm bolts to?

 

Weld sheet metal or replace floor pan but worth saving. You'll feel better inside when its done.

 

No its in the rear.... Way back... wheel well...

 

I'll locate them this morning (fingers crossed) It's going to be a couple months before I can afford (by afford I mean - before my wife will let me) floor pans but there is plenty of rust elsewhere to fix until then.

I'm going to do some serious rust searching today. I'll post pics so those of you with rusty cars won't feel so bad.

 

yea pictures are good. haha Dont be shy, take a hammer one handed of course, and hit the rusty stuff That way you know what you have and what you've got to work with....

 

Are these the rear frame rails? Whatever they are, they're not in bad shape. Definitely need to be cleaned up, but the entire underside of the car needs that.

 

Inside the yellow Lines.



I do not own the rights to this photo. The Photos source can be found here.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...ouve-ever.html

 

Not at all what I was looking for. I'll take a look when I get home. thanks for the pic!


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Okay... The rear frame rails are in really good shape! The rear fender wells are shot. At this point, I'm going to need most of a donor car. Maybe I'll be better off trying to find a rust free(ish) car and scrap this one for parts. Hmm...

 

You can weld in steel for the fender wells. no biggie... theres threads and pics here somewhere im just not going to dig em up at 11pm hahaha I just wouldnt get too carried away with patching the frame rail.... but if its good your all set!! just needs a few minor patches

 

If you're battling surface rust or you can grind off/sandblast off the rust I've been having good luck with Eastwoods Rust Encapsulator. I'm restoring an 84 Firebird with some surface rust all over the underside ( no rot though ) and what I've sprayed so far has stayed rust free vs what I originally sprayed with Rustoleum. Spots that have been sprayed with rustoleum have already started to bleed through a bit. Good luck!

 

I will be doing a lot of that as well. If I had 3 wishes, no rust would be one!

 

I picked up 5 or 6 cans off of ebay and even though its Eastwoods ebay store it's cheaper than on their website and it's free shipping too. Check it out.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Eastwood-Rus...68f756&vxp=mtr

 

Thanks for the link, I'll give it a shot.

 

Looks like Im going to have to pull the dash so I can weld in a patch panel without burning it up. I am also tearing apart the front end to get rid of the rust and repaint. Any ideas for a sturdy dolly with casters so I can still move the car around?

 

If you plan to leave the wheels and tires on harbor freight or Northern tool have some beefy reasonably priced dollys with wheels

 

No wheels, I'll be removing everything that's not welded together. There's rust everywhere. I want to kill it before it get's as bad as the floor pans.

 

You can build your own then, pick up some heavy duty casters and build 4 dollys from 2x6's. Place those under the frame rails front and back you should be golden.

 

I was thinking exactly that. Just wasn't sure if 2x6's would be stout enough. This is off opic, bu what kind of power are you getting from your 400?

 

2x6 will work out just fine, the smaller the dolly the stronger it will be, I would think that if you made them 1.5ft x 1.5 or even 2ft x 2ft that would work out fine to support your car in 4 places. And at the moment I'm getting no power from my 400 because it's torn apart right now. I'm in the process of doing a full restoration on an 84 bird. Right now the engine is mostly torn apart but with the parts I'm looking at I would expect around 450hp. I'm not getting crazy but I'm going to put in a cam, aluminum heads, aluminum intake and most likely a 650 cfm carb.

 

Will, I'm goin to have to post pics of my iroc so you will feel better.. your ahead of me tho I gotta find a welder, learn to weld and buy parts. Anyone know a good divorce lawyer? Wife is goin to kill me when I bring home a welder....

 

I feel your pain! Lucky for me My dad had this welder sitting in his garage, I got it on a permanent loan. As far as buying parts.... I get them when I can. We're having a baby in a couple weeks so my wife is pretty concerned about where I'm throwing money. For now I am doing as much tear down and prep as I can.

I would love to see pics of your ride.

 

My first car was an 84 Trans Am. I miss that car! It's the reason I bought the one I have now.

 

I got a step son that's 5 next month lil girl that's 2 in Dec. And one due next month......

 

I have a 16 year old son, 15 year old step-daughter, and 5 year old step-son. We deff have a full house. This is our last for sure!

 

If I decide to go with new floor pans, what is the best way to remove the bracing from the existing floor?

 

Here's what I did:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...-repair-w.html

 

I may be giving up on this bird. The junk yards around here want $400 for a full floor pan. I can get a new one for around $500. I'm sure I can find A (mostly) rust free roller for not much more than that. On the plus side, I have a ton of parts now and I didnt pay much for the car to begin with. Hmm... maybe it's time for a standard transmission? I guess there is an upside.

 

sometimes they will sell you the whole shell cheaper than the floors. junkyard around me choke you to death with labor charges. if all the rust you have is the fender spot and by the heater core thn i say fix it. i tried fixing my 85 and if i could do that you can fix yours because thats nothing compared to mine.

 

I'd take a battery powered saw and chop it out my self if I was you

 

They wont let me do it my self.

 

Most of the floor is shot. Front and rear wheel wells. Rear fenders. T-top. around the windshield. Where the floor meets the door sills. Lower control arms. There is a lot of rust on this car. I havnt decided to scrap it, but I'm leaning that way.

 

is it rot or just surface rust?

 

Lots of rot. Some of it's minor, but there is a def loss om metal. I'll post some pics tomorrow.

 

best bet is to take all the good parts off it. find a local fbody forum offer up and body panels for free and cut the rest of the car apart. my 85 is also too far gone but the memory and history of it is too great so i bought a clean 92 that i will be swapping/ modding to keep my 85s memory alive

 

Its a shame that these cars rot so easily

 

A friend of mine just told me about a salvage yard that will let me do the labor myself. I'll be calling them this morning to see about a floor pan.

I pulled the dash over the weekend. That is going to be a PITA to put back in. I see a 4th gen swap in my future.

 

id ask how much the whole car is personally. floors are a big long time consuming job. once you start theres no turning back

 

I intend to do exactly that. May have to go camaro. There seems to be a lot more of them available out here. I would have a ton of bird parts to get rid of if I do that.


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alot of bird parts can be swapped to a camaro easily

 

where are you located