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Hello All, So a little back story… I bought this 84 Camaro 7 or 8 yrs ago as a project 800 to 1000$ (20 yrs old at the time) Needed new floor pans other then that not a bad looking car, put it in my garage where it sits still today. Guy quoted me 2200$ to cut the old out and weld in new ones about 7 yrs ago. Passed on the option because I was broke at the time. Flash forward to today have some money to start working on it and bought the floor pans for it a few months back. Started to cut out the old floors last night and it is worse then I remember it. Subframe/unibody seems pretty solid still, but no idea where to go now, save it, junk it, part out I love this car but not sure where to go. A few pics attached of the floors or lack there of.
Driverside door area Driverside door area Driverside Full Passenger Side Full Center/Tran Tun Driver side Full sideshot Drivers Side Front
Nothing is too far gone if your willing to put the time in. With that being said, that is a pretty heavy repair job. How straight is the body? Are they full pans with bracing and all? Hows the rear quarters and paint in general? might be better off moving on.
The paint is 7/10 i'm fine with how it looks on the outside . One 3in rust bubble on the door thats about it. Body is straight .The floor fans are Full floorpans from summit or rockauto made by Sherman i have both driver and passenger side and i also have seat mounts/floor braces from cali i bought a few yrs back also,
There are guys that have fixed worse and most will say don't bother,I say at least try to repair.I love third gens and if you can afford the time and money to repair this I think you will be happy.
Are going to repair this yourself and how far does the new floor pans extend up to the body because the drivers may need more repair panels.
there is enough good metal where the trans is I think i can cheat them closer to the body/door area if needed.Ill be doing the welding myself and some fabrication. My new concern is this hole where the floor pan stops, not sure if its structural or not so not sure if it can be cut out and refabed or not. Hole
Do you have any pics from the outside of the hole?
One thing about it it does not look to be supporting anything now,so if you cut out just enough to repair the hole and and replace the metal I think it would be fine.That might be easier said than done,but when you finish this and it is all repaired you will be proud and will have gained much valuable knowledge.
I would suggest subframe connectors after the repair to help with structural support.
Maybe some other members that have repaired this area will chime in with their experience and knowledge.
Thank you for the link and the advice much appreciated. Sorry no picture from the outside, but when I get home I will try and get a picture of it. Yes, I was looking at UMI boxed style sub frame connectors from hawks but did not when to jump the gun on those like i did the floor pans and the seat mounts.
I'll be the nay sayer... hit craigs list GA, AL, SC, CA, AZ, NM and you can find thirdgens all day long for $1500 with almost no rust (like some of the hardware may have rust but no panel rust). Fly down and drive it home. Turn your current one into a parts car and turn 2 into 1 nice one. I bet if you look real close to the lap seams in the front frame rails on that car it will have rust forming etc. I'll put it this way the ones in the junkyard here in GA are in better condition.
Even if you want to repair it I would go this route, buy a v6 from the south and use the sheet metal from it.
I'll be the nay sayer... hit craigs list GA, AL, SC, CA, AZ, NM and you can find thirdgens all day long for $1500 with almost no rust (like some of the hardware may have rust but no panel rust). Fly down and drive it home. Turn your current one into a parts car and turn 2 into 1 nice one. I bet if you look real close to the lap seams in the front frame rails on that car it will have rust forming etc. I'll put it this way the ones in the junkyard here in GA are in better condition.
Even if you want to repair it I would go this route, buy a v6 from the south and use the sheet metal from it.
X2 bandit and add Texas to list So much better avoiding major rust repair all together, OK, I had to say that, but your already into this I like doing floors since they really wouldnt show like a bad quarter panel replacement. cut out all the rust that's there - leaving it there will just let it keep rusting. Take your time make new panels fit like they should, are you experienced to weld this up? or having someone else do that? what the guy was going to charge was his labor time the more you do saves you. I always figured I had more time than money so i learned alot along the way and now with YouTube well watch a lot of videos and you will get some good knowledge on these repairs
hope this helps
I have an 82 Trans Am with a giant hole in my back passenger side floorboard from rust. Both floorpans are shot. But, I'm extremely bonded to the car and can't just part it out. Floorpans are replaceable. It takes a bit of work, but if you don't like the results, you can always do what Aviator857 said. But in my opinion, since you said you really loved the car, I'd at least try. It won't hurt, and you'll gain some experience from it. Hope you can get it fixed!
X2 bandit and add Texas to list So much better avoiding major rust repair all together, OK, I had to say that, but your already into this I like doing floors since they really wouldnt show like a bad quarter panel replacement. cut out all the rust that's there - leaving it there will just let it keep rusting. Take your time make new panels fit like they should, are you experienced to weld this up? or having someone else do that? what the guy was going to charge was his labor time the more you do saves you. I always figured I had more time than money so i learned alot along the way and now with YouTube well watch a lot of videos and you will get some good knowledge on these repairs
hope this helps
Ill keep an eye out for a 3rd gen in those areas. Thanks for the advice.Being in northern West Virginia all those places are pretty far out for me but if its running and driving then it shouldn't be an issue getting it home if i have to go that route.Ill have my welding certification in about 8 weeks so i wouldn't say i'm experienced but ill have a pretty good idea what i'm doing i hope.
By far the #1 issue is the extent of the rot. Floor pans and most of the external sheetmetal are offered as repros and patch panels. But when you get into it, the rust isn't isolated to just the floor pans. Gay-ron-tee the rust extends over the lap joints where panels meet. Probably find the rust follows and flows between the lapped joints. Meaning you need the floor pans plus sections of the panels that meet up to the floor pans. You'll need to repair or replace panels that aren't reproduced, and rust free donors don't populate the junkyard, all thirdgens rust in the same places.
Just in that Driver's front corner, you've got the floor pan, the toe board, the inner rocker, and inner door jamb. To fix it right, you've got to separate the panels, cut away all the rust, and weld in new metal or at least good metal. It's a pain in the ***. I've been working at rust in that same area of my project car, but on a much smaller scale. https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...ml#post6269164
Once you start stripping away the rust to try to find clean metal, you'll probably discover the rust is worse than you think. Sure you can probably fix it. It's probably just not worth fixing. I'd suggest starting small, dip a toe into the project and decide if you really want to be married to a project of that magnitude. My guess is you'll find that when the rust is completely cut away, there probably isn't enough left to really work with.
Thats what i'm noticing already.when putting it on the wheel dolly's i noticed the jackpoint/pinch welds are rusted pretty bad but still usable(i tried them out diden't sound pretty).that and iv noticed there is no real places to weld the floor pans of the side by the doors Thats where im at a loss is the non reproduced parts and finding the metal rocker panels and the junk yards around me are all rusted because of salt from the winters up here. I'd hate to chalk this up as a loss but ill find out more this weekend when i get rest the dash and everything out.
Yeah, if you go back a page or two, I made up patch panels from a junk Mustang fender. Lots of paper and cardboard templates, transfered to steel, then bent and shaped with a variety of tools, and welded into place. Very fiddly for a not very rusty car. I probably could have taken shortcuts and just covered up a patchwork of smaller panels with sealer and carpet. No one will ever see under the carpet.
Yeah, if you go back a page or two, I made up patch panels from a junk Mustang fender. No one will ever see under the carpet.
Great use of a Mustang!
Bandit hope were not coming off as Negative Nelly's but when you get in there you see there's more damaged than is available not to mention your time I grew up in Chicagoland and moved to Texas in 78 and I avoid rusty cars for this issue. It Never sleeps. IMO its worth a week of vacation to fly out and drive back something w/o rust your still time, money ahead good thing to have welders certification but still a lot of work I'd rather do mechanicals then fix rust any day.
my 69 Bird needed floors and trunk pans replaced we do have rust here but that's mostly due to leaks and water sitting in them not salt
when I replaced the leaf springs in this car it all unbolted and bolted back together with OE fasteners. A NY buddy of mine used to source 70's wagons and 4 doors 74-76 were best and few Imperials from here to do demo derby's with most guys used rusted up cars that would fold up because they were rotten, not his
good thing is you don't pay a premium for a non rusty car here like you would up north
We have tons of rust-free here in the NW. For what it would cost to replace the body and even shipping - it's well worth the investment. With a uni-body car, once it starts, it can't be stopped. Sure you can swim upstream against that current - but think what cool upgrades you could be doing with all that time if the body wasn't shot. I vote for scrapping the shell and moving the good parts to a non-rusty one.
What drew said…I've done worse but in addition to the car I loved and was doing I made sure I had a rust free roller for all the metal I see I needed and couldn't see. This way you can start without stopping to locate parts/metal needed and $$$ to continue
Plus it's a uni-body car, so the answer to one question above, EVERYTHING is structural... I see you're getting some sort of welding cert, that's good! If you do decide to try to fix this shell, always be sure to do a test weld on the same gauge materials, and destructive test them, you'd be surprised how weak a nice looking weld can be.
The welds are never the problem. With low grade rusted, pitted sheet metal to weld to - the failure will be the metal adjacent to the weld which will become brittle and will crack easily.
Mine was essentially like that and I replaced the full pans.
You will have more inner rocker fabrication than you think... You can do it in a few days of solid work,
