Major structural rust problem! HELP!

[Murph]

Nope....not them. It's further forward than that and they are irregular in shape.

I'm borrowing the work digi cam tomorrow morning. I'lll have pics posted by lunch time.

[SHOTIME]

Originally posted by Alfadog

The holes in the floorpan could be your drainage holes... are they like these holes: http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=2991&papass=&sort=1&thecat=998

No not those huge gaping holes at the front, the round ones in the middle of the floor.

Get some pics

I wish my floorboards looked like that. Mine has a 1 foot round hole in it.....something like Fred Flintstone would drive.

[Murph]

Pics time...

http://users.bigpond.net.au/oceanz/z/zrooted/

1. This is the first thing I saw. Not happy Jan. You can see where I've been scraping back the deadener in all the shots. Note that there is metal under the deadener, it's only rusted on the broken edges.

2. Behind the rear break. Notice how smashed up the floor and chassis rail are. Also the gouges in the floor.

3. Looking from under the car at one of the gouges.

4. The front break. On the right side is the radius rod bracket. The actual break is just under the front of the bracket, however you can see how displaced it is. (15-20mm)

5. A good overview of the broken section looking from the side of the car.

6. Close up of the rear break. Note all the bog used to make it look flat, and that once you scrape of the surface rust there is metal.

A few new observations.

-The radius rod is slightly bent

-There are a few tiny rust holes in the footwell area. Only a few mm across.

-There appears there may be a few gouges on the other side of the car too.

[2ManyZs]

All I can say is OUCH!!!:cross-eye

It looks bad, but it looks repairable..

If you notice the reinforcement panel just above the T?C rod mount in the inner fender itself, it is a common rust area. I've seen many cars with this panel rusted completely through to the engine compartment so that is not a real issue.

It does look like the car at one time or anohter might have had some damage, either by a garage lift, running up on a curb.. hard to tell what may have caused the cave-in of the frame rail.

Looks like at the very least you'll need to replace the under floor frame rail and then have someone cut you a panel to replace the reinforcement panel in the inner fender. With that in place they could then re-weld the seam to mount the T/C pocket.

Most of what I see can be repaired fairly easily with some patch panels and welding.

However before you do anything, you'll need to remove the undercoating and search for any more rust. You might end up finding some in the floor pans themselves as the rust may have gone from the frame rail into the floor pan. Once you have the undercoating removed, you'll be able to get a better asessment of the rust damage as a whole.

It isn't going to be cheap, but at least it's in an area that is fairly easy to fix and replacement parts are available... however, where you are, I don't know what the prices or availability of those replacement panels will be. Here in the US, MSA has most everything you'd need....

Also, if you are doing this side, you might better do the other side at the same time and see what might be hidden under the coating on that side as well. If you have seams that are compromised on one side like this one at the frame, inner fneder, T/C mount they could possibly in the same shape on the other side.....

:disappoin

[Murph]

I'm just about the head out and continue to scrape the deadener off.

Here's a pic of the blob of metal/rust with the wires coming out of it.

[2ManyZs]

Looks like what Alan said, someone with little or no experience with a mig welder was trying to weld up a hole and only succeeded in sticking the wire....:stupid:

Better safe than sorry, you really need to find what else might be hidin gunder the undercoating... Only then will you know for sure how much you are going to have to repair/replace...:disappoin

[Alfadog]

If it's any consolation, my car broke down today 40km from home, and still does not work.

the z..............

[Murph]

[Alan Pugh]

2Many is right on the money, it is all repairable. Frame rail might be hard to get in oz, but any sheet metal worker could bend you up a floor pan and most likely the frame rail as well. I don't know how much you can do yourself as far as the repairs go, but anything you can do that someone doesn't saves you precious dollars. The only thing I would really stress to you is to remove the rest of the sound deadener for quite some distance arround both frame rails, and if possible check all the floor from the inside too. Anything that you think looks suspect try to push a screwdriver through it. Good luck with it and if there is anything you find in Melbourne parts wise that you need send me a message and i'll see what I can do to help you out with getting it up there.

Alan.

[Murph]

Thanks for the offer there. Might just take you up on that.

I wont be able to do the actual fabrication and welding part of the repairs, but I'll be trying to do everything else myself. I'm pretty busy at uni atm so don't have too much time to work on it.

I'm also looking into the legal side of things atm, both the previous owner and also the workshop that gave it a roadworthy.

[frankensteinZ]

I hate to take advantage of someone else's troubles but my car has the same problem about to occur. Now that I know how much trouble it is to fix I am not go to take the car out of the garage until I get somebody with a spot welder over here to fix it.

Sorry about your luck.

Frankenstein Z

[Murph]

Now that I'm taking it back to bare metal under the car, should I be putting something on there to stop it rusting?