Oh great... I just took a good look under the side of my GTA for the first real time and I don't like what I saw... The previous owner (my oldest brother) claimed that he had it undercoated every year. Just about everything is covered in rust. I poked around in a few ugly areas on the driver's floorpan and it still seems pretty solid though, and no immediately apparent holes (aside from under the spare, inside the fender). The axle tube, everything, rust. Damn, I wish I had the garage space to do some serious work on this thing myself. This'll cost me a fortune...

I've actually considered selling my ol Jimmy to fix the GTA up, but of course I'd have nothing to drive while the GTA is out of commission. At what point is it too far gone.......? I don't want to go the drive-it-till-it-dies route (that's what the Jimmy is for. )

 

The previous owner of my car (my dad) let her go pretty bad. I still have rust to deal with even to today, but the engine is in beautiful shape. Floor pan rust, panel rust, all easy to deal with if on surface and the only time I'd consider it way gone is if the frame was falling apart. I had a hole the size of a fist in the left rear bucket seat, using fibreglass to repair any all rust spots. Stong as before and easy to sand down to how you like it. My car is winter driven as its my only car, but she still has plenty of life in her and has seen 13 winters.

 

The floor pan goes fast once it starts. IMO you have to cut the rusted bits out and replace them.

What point is it too far gone? Well it's got to be cheaper to pay more money for one of these cars that's not rusted than it is to do even a modest restoration because there are still good examples of the cars available altough it takes time to find one.

 

Well the GTA is kinda special to us. He sold it to me instead of trading it in so that it would stay in the family. My sister-in-law still loves it... Plus it's a '90 GTA, which in itself isn't easy to replace (limited production that year and all).

I'm hoping it's just widespread surface rust on the floor pans but I'm sure it goes deeper in at least some areas. How I wish I had more room to work on this thing... I guess I'll have to wait until I get the driveway one weekend and put one side up on jackstands so I can crawl under and, uh, poke around. After seeing the pics in that quarter panel thread in the "body and interior" forum I'm kinda scared...

 

Yeah I did'nt read your signiture about the 1 of 299 and so on.

What point is too far gone is difficult to assess because it depends on how special the car is either to you in particular or the market in general. On some vintage race cars the only original part is the tag with the serial number stamped on it.

However, you better get on it if you're going to because the rust will not wait upon your leisure.

 

I dunno what to say... I would fix it up if I were you. But if its not done right, you'll find yourself doing it again and again. I am not sure if anyone sells new floorpans for the 3rd gen f-body, but I would say that is your best bet. Remove the whole interior, Carefully, and get the whole floor exposed from the inside. This may saound like the hard way, but trust me, its the easy way. I would cut out the full floor pan and weld in new ones (hopefully someone makes them)

 

Rust never sleeps eh ? I got some unwelcome surprises on my 2nd f-body and it was only 4 years old at the time. I pored over my current Formula for a couple of hours before I bought it checking for rust -- wasn't going to deal with it twice !

There was alot of talk a few weeks back about some POR-15 stuff. Apparently you just paint it on over rust and it seals it for good ? I've never tried it so am only going on hearsay but it might be something to look into (inexpensive) until you can address the widespread problem (expensive).

Very rare car I hope you are able to restore it.

RP.

 

They sell the stuff as rust paint at crappy tire under Rust Check paint. From what I heard of the compound it binds to rust making it a sealed surface that acts like a primer. Now we know that oxides will coat the outside of a surface and as long as that oxide layer is there it doesn't go further. I'm thinking if you use the stuff and it seals it ok, I won't have to sand/drill my current problems with a few panels and repair with fibreglass. although the fibreglass solution was a good one for me as its really good at sealing up without having to replace whole panels.

 

I would love to tear the whole car down and do it right, but alas that's not an option. I mean, I'm reduced to parking in my Grandma's garage a few doors down, and it's a shared garage with her neighbors. I have zero workspace for body work short of the driveway on nice days. Hell with all of this rain lately (and my family situation) I haven't even been able to replace the torn CV boot on my ol Jimmy.

In one of the other threads in the body board someone is replacing their floorpans so they definitely should be avaliable. Still, without the room to do it myself I have to get it done professionally, and that's not cheap. Hopefully the floor's not that far gone anyway. If there are any holes hopefully I can just fibreglass them up. I really want to keep it though, it's such a gorgeous car.

Actually I bought a can of that Rust Check stuff a couple of weeks ago for the rust on my Jimmy's fenders, before I took a good look at the T/A. The instructions aren't great though. Does this stuff need to be painted over to work properly? do I have to wait a certain amount of time before painting? Is it really necessary to clean up the flaking rust first?

The other laser guy at work says I should just get it undercoated with oil and that'd stop the rust from spreading. Any opinions there? I'd assume the Rust Check stuff would be a better way to go...

 

You have to sand off the loose rust first, then the rust check will coat whatever is left and seal it up so it won't spread. It now becomes a primer surface which you can paint over and need not worry about bubbling up. Now with the other version of the rust check paint, it is a paint that seals up the rust as well but is not a primer surface to be painted over, but you can it just won't be as effective as the primer version of the rust check. Now as for oiling, don't do it, its a waste of money and can and will make just a mess underneath. Dirt will stick to the oil forming a big mess, trust me I did this once and I still haven't gotten rid of the mess it made. Do a Rust Check rust guard job done. It doesn't cost a lot ($100 avg) and it coats your underside with a zinc compound barrier that will seal up the underside and protect it from futher spreading and even keep the rust that exists there sealed up so that it won't flake off and expose another layer of metal to rust. This will last a year in really brutal snow/salt conditions, and will last up to 4 years under non winter driven conditions.

 

Where can I ge this Rust Guard done? Or would just buying a bunch of spray cans from Canadian Tire and doing it myelf work just as well? ***, in some ways I feel like such a rookie... lol

 

you think you have it bad my GTA had NO strut towers!! lol well not exacley but there not great

anyway the best thing i request yo do is buy a bottle of acid , i'll find out the exact name later , you brush it on and it east away all the rust leaving a clean spot of metal , then you can coat it with some tremclad , i did this to the frame of my fiero

 

There's a place on my way home which advertises "rustblock" rust proofing. Any idea if this is the same as that rust guard thing? I intend to stop by and see what they say anyway, hopefully tomorrow.

Now this rust-eating acid... Does the car have to be up on a lift for this, or is a couple of jackstands enoogh room to apply this stuff? Spray cans would be so easy except they rarely work on their sides, which they would need to be to spray under the car.

 

You can jack up the car and brush it on it will eat the paint brush so you may need more then one , you may want to keep a hose near to spray it off ,you can hear it sizzle when it hits the rusted area , works really well

 

Any idea on the name of this stuff? I'm starting to like that idea... How long does it take to work?

I took a close look at the rear wheel wells over lunch today. Damn, they're ugly too. No apparent holes but they can't be far off. Is it a tragedy to consider letting a '90 GTA rust out? There's just so much rust... I don't want to blow $4k on the body only to have the undercarriage fall out from underneath me.

 

I work with a guy who used it on a surface-rusted fender, and he said that it's been a couple years and there's no sign of rust...

I'm gonna try it on my car (I've got a few paint blisters on the rear fender, and one of the previous owners apparently had a hard time finding the emergency-jack slats, so the side-rails are chewed up a bit...) by the end of the summer...

 

Isn't POR-15 more of a rust inhibitor than an acid? Either way, is any available locally?

 

From what I gather, it's a 'Rust Arrestor/Inhibitor'... You sand/wire-wheel/grind off the rust, and then use the various prep-chemicals followed by POR to seal up the bare-metal...

I'll find out more when I get some, as the underbody of my '91 bird has some nasty surface rust, and I have 4 small paint-blister spots that need fixing (I live in wisconsin, so we have similar crappy weather...).

POR-15 is (iirc) available by mail-order on the Internet, if you can't get it in canada.

 

Well when I take it to get it painted I'll ask the body guy what he thinks. Of course, that'll have to wait until I get the Jimmy e-tested (any good places in Mississauga?), and it'll need a cat before that.... Damn cars are expensive eh?

 

yeah man I got some serious rust at the areas you mentioned.
Its so bad that my rear gfx peice fell right off.
yep..
its crap I tell yah