an example of how bad it can get

[St.stephen]

Fellow east coast guys can appreciate this one. The west coasters can see it first hand of how lucky you can be.

This was a 78 280 I acquired after a long time of sitting. a friend of mine sold this car to a non mechanical person who refused my help and direction of what to do with the car.

A simple replacement of the FI harness would have solved all his issues which I had in the shop. Fast forward 10 years and trim back the bushes that claimed this one and here are the results. A leaking sunroof was the culprit.

Got the car for a hundred bucks after refusing his sale price of 1500 hundred for YEARS. I scored alot of suspension, body, interior and a .030 over L28 but needless to say this didn't have to happen.

Just before she went to the heap.

[Jeff G 78]

Yep, I can appreciate that. I had a '75 that had the same exact rust patterns. The RH side was rotten from the windshield all the way down the firewall to the rear kickup panel just like yours. My RF strut tower also had the same holes.

[Evil Turkey]

And here I thought mine was badly rotten... it's actually "VERY CLEAN/NO RUST!" compared to these... at least my floorpans (weren't original) were still hanging on for dear life, god knows how... what was left of the original floor, near the firewall and behind the seats were almost desintegrated!

"Funny Z story"

I remember the day we took my Z to a friend's garage so that we could strip it and scavenge every good part before sending the bare body to the scrapyard:

I gave a little kick in the passenger's side outter rocker. This spot showed NO rust bubbles or any outter rust at all... after the kick, a huge chunk of paint came down, followed by A LOT of dust... rusty metal dust... it left a gaping hole the size of my fist as you can probably see on this picture:

This car was LITERALY kept together by the paint!

Edited December 26, 2010 by Evil Turkey

[ajmcforester]

This car was LITERALY kept together by the paint!

I've seen this on the road I went to look at one Z when I got their I notice the car was sagging well it was buckling from the rusting out and the guy was driving it. He got out of the car and you can hear the rust grind against its self:paranoid:

It is a shame many of these cars could have been saved if someone cared to take time to repair the rust when noticed, but its only minor rust they say. The other is its not running right throw it in the back we'll fix it or sell it later, then they want the price of what the car was worth running, and in the condition when they stuck it in the back 40.