Another option would be to find a cheap rust free shell and remove the floor pans from that one and the quarter panel. You might be able to find a parts car for $500 and then you would have all the parts you would need and you could probably make some of that money back by selling off parts you don't need. Also it sounds like you are planning on keeping this car for a while so I wouldn't recommend using the fiberglass repair kit on the quarter panel, it may look good for a couple of years but then it most likely will come back or the patch may loosen up or fall out. You have the right attitude and I'm glad you're saving it but I would try to do the body work once and be done with it. But I would maybe look for a rust free shell since it will be cheaper and they don't make a lot of parts that you may need yet. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Well so far the only thing I've found that needs to be fixed was a couple small spots on the floor. I don't think I need a whole shell just yet, but it IS a plan for the future.

 

Yeah I hear you there another option would be going to a pick and pull kind of junk yard (where you pull the parts off yourself) and if you could find a clean 3rd gen camaro you could cut the pieces out that you would need I have heard of people getting rear quarter panels for $30 and some work with there sawzall. You may get your floor for less than that. If you go this route I would just recommend that you cut way more than you think you are gonna need. But the hardest part might be finding a rust free 3rd gen camaro in a junk yard. I know in my case I'm gonna be getting a parts car because I need a full quarter panel with the sail panel and I figure I will probably find other parts I will like out of the parts car and after I sell all the pieces I don't need Hopefully it won't cost to much to get my quarter panel. Good luck to you.

 

Even if you either got a $500 shell or $30 sawed off parts, that is still alot of work and $$$$.

Good for you to have the initiative but body work is the most time consuming and hardest to make back to normal.

I would tackle any car that just needed engine work or even easier interior work. I would never tackle a car that needed body work. I have seen many people buy a "Cheap" car that need alot of body work and 5 years later they are in a money pit still working on that rusted body that has continually rusted.

Wish you the best of luck.

 

Thanks for the help and good luck guys. What I want to know is why these cars tend to rust in the same places. For example the driver side floor closer to the door. Almost every time I see pics of a rusted floor, that spot is one of the most rusted out areas.

 

Hi Chevydrvr,

first off, congrats to finding a car worth saving, and thnx for being as motivated as you are to save it.

Anything can be done, and I've seen cars with larger holes being fixed just fine.

All it needs is motivation and time. Money will come with time usually. A bit of patience is required, and of course some metalworking skills or good friends.

I live in europe. Climate here is pretty harsh. Most of the thirdgens around here are purchased by people who actually intend to keep the vehicle and restore it. For most that means completely stripping the vehicle, filling any holes, then preparing the vehicle for assembly.

I can really advise POR15 products. Their Marine clean, rust deterrent and paints are of good quality and once aplied last what appears to be a lifetime.

These cars tend to rust in certain placed because of the way the cars are tack-welded together, and then poorly conserved. There are certain areas where water collects easily, and in some of those locations body panels meet, are welded together and offer perfect situations for rust to bloom.

From the pictures you've shown I would personally advise to dismantle the vehicle, get it up to a convenient height for working, then cut out the bad parts and replace with sheet metal.

Dismantling makes conservation fairly easy, but expect to have your car out of order for a while, and better then new when you're done. For me a reward like that would be well worth the investments in time and money.

I do agree with Topduarte on one thing. Most people think bodywork is one of these things that can be done while still using the car as a daily or something. Cutting corners in bodywork will get you in a moneypit.

If you are able to do a lot of it yourself, and decide to do things the right way from the start, which means jacking up the car for however long it takes, and mercilessly replacing bad panels with new sheet or parts cut off of a donor vehicle, order required materials in advance as far as possible.

 

Underneath the brake booster in the engine bay, as well as the heater and AC system, behind the shock towers, is a very common spot for rust to surface because a lot of dirt and grime collects there, especially when it rains, and in time (if it isn't cleaned and treated), it will penetrate through the firewall. When the rain water enters inside of the vehicle, it gets absorbed by what is underneath the carpeting up front, and remains damp for quite a long time. Surface rust soon takes its toll, and before you know it, it penetrates. Driving in the rain doesn't help in that state, because the water then gets kicked up inside the vehicle. You should have seen my '84 Anniversary TA that I saved a few months ago, it was much worse than yours when I pulled the carpet up. Went to the local junkyard with plasma cutter in hand, cut out an entire floor board from a donor, brought it back, cut what was left of the stocker's out, lined it up, tacked it in, sealed it up, then coated it so that it will never rust again. Sounds difficult, but it isn't, especially with the plasma cutter...

 

I've heard of people going in with a sawzall and cutting floor pans out. Idk how well that would work though.

I ordered a shifter off ebay last week and it came in today:




Is that the right shifter? I've seen a different style where the white part is notched. I just have to clean this one up a bit. I also need the stem that goes inside! Anybody have one sitting around they could send me?

 

I'm glad I live in the northwest where we only get surface rust

 

wow, thats alot of rust, my 90 RS v6 had a hole in the drivers side right where urs is but bout half the, i said forget it and traded it to my buddy for whats now my 85 IROC Z28 thast completly rust free as far as i can see, ill kno this weekend when i pull out my carpet, but from looking under neath i cant see any rust

AND I LIVE IN NE! lol, pennsylvania

but anyway that car of yours is REALLY nice, cept the rust, fix that asap, rust scares me, thats the only thing that really turns me away from buying a car,

but urs isnt to bad where it cant b fixed it can b fixed lol

 

Hey thanks man! It won't be much for for me as I said i'm going to bring it to my school and have them welding some sheetmetal then i'll put some type of rust protection on the floor and under the car.

The car is surprisingly rust free other than what you see.There is NOTHING in the back end other than the impact bar. There is a little behind the dash on the firewall near the heater core. I'll have to check that out. I need to take out the dash anyway to replace the heater core and take some sockets out of the defroster vents haha.

 

yea def undercoat your car, previous owner spray painted the underside of mine black, lol like thats gona prevent rust, im gona get it rino lined or sumthing

but first priority in my book is finishing my interior and gettin the lil tpi 305 to have more power lol, paint can wait 2 or 3 more months

 

What would you guys recommend I use? I thought about using POR15, but it's pretty expensive from what I've seen and read on here.

 

my car has bad floors to and you know what its a good way to learn about cars. Best frist car is one that dont run is loaded with rust and looks crappy heres why

teach you welding and metal work
teach you body work and paint
teach you mechanics

you end up with a sweet car the know how of everything you did and the pride of knowing that car looks and drives because of your 2 hands i say build it up should turn out amazing dude

 

Nice Car! I just got a 92 RS 2 weeks ago myself. White with black stripes. I need to make a thread lol.
My floors are a little rusty but I'm going to have to take care of that later in the spring. Check all your brake lines under the car as well as fuel lines. My lines are shot.

Looks good good luck with it!

 

I agree with everything solitaire says except one thing, just from what I have read around here when doing any kind of major structural body work (not bolt ons, quarters floors and anything else that has to be majorly welded to replace) the best thing you can do is put on a crappy set of wheels and tires, let the car sit on the ground and jack up on the subframes VERY SLIGHTLY and the reason for this is when you jack the car up and do any structural bodywork (rear quarters floors) the car will flex and when you set the car back down the car will flex back to where it was and then things may not line up. Now when I say structural bodywork I am talking replacement like a quarter panel replacement or replacing the entire floor pan where a big structural part is cut out not patching holes. The only reason I bring this up here is because of how close the rust is to your rocker panel, which is what concerns me the most in your case. But you are determined to save your car so in your financial situation what I would do is go to a junkyard and cut out way more than you think you need and take it to your auto body parts class at the school you are at and let them work their magic.

Now I am a little torn on this project on rather I should advise to wait until you can afford do it right or just patch it together now, bit in this case I would say if you could get all the pieces you need from a junk yard at a decent price I would do it now and the reason I say this is your auto mechanics class will have all the right tools to perform a task like this (jigs, laser alignment tools etc) and it probably won't cost you anything to do it either. So good luck and keep us posted.

 

Hopefully it shouldn't cost me too much, if anything for them to do it for me. I just need them to weld in sheet metal. What should I do before I bring it in though? I plan on using a wire brush to remove as much loose rust as I can and clean it up just to see how much I need fixed. Anything else I should do?

 

If you guys think I have a lotof rust then the guys at Supr Chevy Magazine have a bigger problem.

 

There is actually quite an easy fix for that.
After stripping the car the shell only weighs a few 100 lbs. It´s not that difficult to weld in a cross shaped set of restraints inside the whole of the interior. (see example picture below)



The images come from a 2nd gen Firebird resto where a new roof is being welded in, amongst some other structural repairs. Once you have the interior out welding in a bar left and right isn´t that much additional work, but it speeds up the process because you have better access to the underbelly of the car.

@chvydrvr, do yourself a favour and spend the $500 on POR15. It´s worth the money.
For your car, you´re not going to need that however. The bad spot in the floorpan can be cut out and replaced quite easily once you got yourself access and the area around it cleand up.

With my car I had the luck that I did not have any bodywork to do, but I am in the process of pulling off every bolt on part I can and cleaning, coating and putting it back on after replacing bushings/mounting points/pivots etc.

 

How Much would I need? I was thinking of ordering this when the time came around:

http://www.por15.com/FLOOR-PAN-TRUNK...uctinfo/FPTRK/

How much would that cover? My plan is to EVENTUALLY get the floor inside covered with that and the underside of the floor too.

 

Dear Gaw..... I guess that's what submerging your car in a lake will do.

 

I really advise to weld in a new piece in the floorboard as well as that bad wheel arch.

Definately do not expect to be able to fix that with fibreglass and epoxy.

The fiberglass and epoxy might be usefull in some areas like restoring the headliner and other interior pieces as well as ground effects if required (if you decide not to replace it. Both options are about equally expensive)

The Marine Clean is awesome. Can also be used to clean engine bay etc. A big bottle of the stuff will last quite a while. I also advise to use their Metal Ready prior to painting. Make sure it dries completely before applying the paint however.

You will need some 8-10 pots of paint for the underside of the car. If you want to paint the inside of the floorpan with POR15 as well that´ll make another 8-10 pots. I see however that you can order the stuff far cheaper on your side of the pond. A 6 pack costs $50, that´d make $200 in paint for both sides of the car, and leave you some spare to be used in other areas

 

What do you mean by pots? 8-10 quarts? or Pints? or the 4 oz. cans?

 

I mean those 4 oz. cans.

http://www.por15.com/SIX-PACK/productinfo/SPB/

 

Oh so you say I would need maybe 3 of those 6-packs? That's not too bad along with the marine-clean and metal-ready.

 

Yep, I managed to coat the underside of the car using about 9 and a half of these 4 oz cans. I applied a single coat to all the non-removable parts.

I intend to replace front control arms, rear control arms, torque arm and panhard with tubular products, add a strut brace and wonderbar, and clean and coat the stabilizer bars and rear axle untill next winter, so I did not need to paint them at the time.

With the prices I see it is indeed not that bad at all.

 

SO I would need the marine clean, metal ready and the 4 oz. cans of POR15. DO I also need to use their top coats?

 

The top coat reduces deterioration of the paint caused by UV light. If you intend to drive the car upside down a lot, you would need a top coat, if not, I'd say it's not required.
Personally I treated mine with Marine Clean (cleaned the engine bay with that as well), then applied the Metal Ready, let that tdry out for about 2 days and then applied POR15. That's about half a year ago now, but I have seen some cars where the same procedure was used, and has held up a few years without a scratch.

A forum member on these forums, a Neil with an LSX third gen camaro has some nice "in progress" and finished photographs on using POR15.

 

same situation here with the 85 IROC, no rust, but in a year ot 2 when i get a place with a grage not just a driveway i plan to strip it and re do the whole car lol like your doing

 

Not to steal the thread, but it´s about that time as well.
These cars are between 20 and 30 years old by now and for enthousiasts it´ll become more and more important to restore and conserve the few good and mostly cars that still exist. Large numbers of these cars were made, but many were lost in, admittedly, some spectacular builds and a lot of backyard custom chop jobs. I mind none of those, but I think by now the few remaining survivors have a place amongst these as well, and a well kept RS shall become about as valuable as a well kept IROC or Z.

For me that means that now I will invest in mostly stock replacement parts, some minor improvements to have the car keep up with modern day traffic, but no big conversion or engine swaps. I know that means I´ll never see a return of the investments I´m making, but keeping a bit of automotive history rolling is worth it to me.

 

I completely agree with you.

 

here are some new floor pans for 1982-2002 Camaro/Firebird Trunk Floor Pans

http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/sh...ponents_1.aspx


http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/19...floorpans.aspx


http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/19...floorpans.aspx

 

Those links aren't working for me, but I'll search on their website.

EDIT: I guess something is wrong with the website or something, but it's not going to their website either.

 

they worked for me just now, there must be something wrong with your browser

 

They are working now, must have been a temporary thing. Thanks for the links!

 

Hey guys passed the road test today and registered the camaro! I'm going to my uncle's tog et it on saturday and get it inspected. Most likely won't pass but that's okay.

 

Alright I got the camaro back home today! Took forever to get it out of the back yard with the mud, but we got it. It overheated when we were out ALMOST of the mud! SO now I'll need a new thermostat. No problem. I love driving it! It pulls to the right a little, my uncle says it's the right front calipers acting up. Gotta look at that. I have a lit of "need-to-do's"

Fan switch
Idler arm
new tires
Thermostat
Blower motor resistor
heater core
new belt

Lots to do! But i'm looking forward to it.

Here's a pic of her currently parked:

 

That list still looks fairly modest.
Overheating is indeed one of the things these cars like to do a lot.

In the end I decided to do an allround cooling overhaul. Can only advise to do the same, to prevent any further cooling issues or even worse, frustration.

My car came without the iardam, so I fabricated one. Still have to make an improved and final version, but that´s for later. The current dam holds up fine.

If you´re certain that´s there, clean out any leaves/debris caught between the A/C core and the radiator.

Flush radiator and engine and fill up with new coolant.

Check and replace thermostat (stock one is just fine).

Make sure fan starts spinning, and have someone rev the car a bit to see if the coolant hoses going to and from the radiator (the lower one is generally the worst) collapse under pressure.

If all these work temperature should no longer be something you should have to worry about. Not expensive either.

 

First thing I need to do is replace the fan switch and make sure it works. I have a new thermostat and heater core on the way so I need to install those too. AS far as I know, that's all that NEEDS to be done to get the cooling system to where it should be.

 

Did it pass inspection? Your project is looking completely like mine right now. I just bought Kumho All seasons. Going to test them out in the snow in NY now. I also need an alignment too.

 

I haven't taken it to get inspected yet, I'm waiting for my uncle to get me a deal on some used tires to pass.

 

Yeah, my new tires just ran me some cash but safety is number 1. Check out my car : https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...-my-92-rs.html . Did you do a complete tune-up on your car? Plugs and wires? I want to do that soon to see if performance increases.

 

So far I've done the plugs, cap, and rotor. Haven't been able to work on it a lot but now that I can drive it and it's at my house, I can work on it a lot more.

I'll take a look at your car!

I have a question about my headliner. DO you think I should buy a new one? I was just going to put some new fabric on it, but I thin I might need to buy a now headliner board. I hope I can fix it because headliner boards are expensive! Why are they so expensive?

 

The best thing to do with the headliner is maybe find a good one from a parts car. My headliner needs to be repaired as well, I might just need new fabric as well. It looks like its missing pieces?

 

Yeah part of it is missing in the second pic, I have it though. I know there is a firebird S/E in the junkyard with a perfect headliner, but it's black. I could just replace the fabric. I'll have to go take a look someday soon.

 

you should get a good fiberglass headliner board

i need one as well

 

It´s fairly easy to fix bad headliner.
Just get some fibreglass weave, epoxy, hardener and something to apply, take out the headliner, clean it, the cover it in a thin layer of epoxy, apply fibreglass and let all of that dry.

You can cover the complete healiner in fibreglass, but generally a H shape for stability and some fibreglass to patch any bad areas suffises.

After the epoxy set you need to drill out the holes for the sunvisors and domelight.

I will use a fibreglass filler on the underside of the headliner, sand it smooth, and then apply new fabric. Should be as good as new for under $100.

 

http://www.markscustomkits.com/Interior-Products.htm





Marks Custom Kits is now pleased to be able to offer one of the harder items to find for your conversion or restoration, the headliner panel. These long discontinued items from Pontiac are now available as either an un-covered panel so you can have it covered in your own color scheme, or you can get it covered in Doeskin Tan which is the most popular color for interior conversions. These new headliner panels will NEVER rot since they are made from durable and long lasting fiberglass. You can get these recovered whenever you want to change color or replace the headlining material after color fade. These will replace your existing headliner and fit like a glove since they were molded from an original headliner clip.



Headliner Panel- Uncovered $125.00 ( shipping not included )
Headliner panel- Covered ( tan) $200.00 (shipping not included)

 

Where would I get the fiberglass stuff? Can I use a kit?

 

If you mean the fiberglass resin with hardener then yes. Be sure to get the shape right. I repaired mine with it and it works good. Most interior shops do the same thing. Read about those AM headliners before you choose one. I read about one on this board that didn't work too well. Good luck with it.