bodywork / rust

[ditchyboy]

So i looked at another 5 today and had a good poke around the underneath etc. basically there was some pretty bad rust around the boot window, couple of blemishes on the front of bonnet and the rubber around the front windscreen does not meet in the middle at the bottom meaning there is some rust gathering there. With the boot i am thinking that this could be replaced, bonnet tidied up. the thing is the windscreen rust does not look too far gone yet, how easy is it to sort rust out? i am guessing i would have to remove the glass and rubber. can quite a lot of rust be fixed without welding?? looking underneath you could tell it had been undersealed and looked, felt solid. right i gave the sills a good pull and push and they felt solid although had a fair bit of surface rust but did not have big lumps coming free etc, so is this ok or if they have a fairly good coating of brown rust should it be avoided? along the very end of the drivers door it is starting to rust and bubble, looks just like the end where mayber catches on closing. rest of bodywork looks good for age (apart from dent in drivers door), really solid around fuel cap etc.

So at what point do you guys walk away from rust? like i said it wasnt just falling off! i fully understand it is an old car but i do not want to have welding to do and want it to be useable and i think the price reflects the condition, lets just say its not up for thousands!!

[BriC]

That sounds pretty good tbh!

Tailgate - piece of piss to replace - just money on getting a new one sprayed - unless you found one in colour, then you're laughing

Bonnet - same as above, but may be repairable?

Windscreen - bit more of an issue. A lot of the rubbers don't meet in the middle.. that's where these come into place: http://www.cgbmotorsport.net/windscreen ... -603-p.asp How bad is the rust? It may just be a case of getting some stuff on there to treat it, and then painting over it..

It sounds like just a few cosmetic problems, which are easily sorted and not very urgent, and the most important thing is - it seems structurally sound

How much does he want if you don't mind me asking?

[OLLIe]

im with BriC - sounds structurally sound with some cosmetics, basically the same as the 5 I`ve bought.

as long as the shell is sound, any removable panels are easily replaced.

ive spent around £1200 in paint / rust treatment on my impreza and the missus has just spent £400 on her integra for the rear arches.

i guess it depends on how much you reallyh want to hold onto the car. my impreza only had minor rust but i took the opportunity to mint the rest of the car at the same time

[Ash-Lee]

Have a closer look at the bottom of the windscreen, it might of been worked on before.

Mine was rusty when i had it, after digging away i found it was all filler that had been slapped on over the years.

[ditchyboy]

cheers for the advice guys.

ash-lee -- so when you found out it had been filled over the years what did you do? Did you get the screen out and repair? how much was it? did you have to have it cut out and re-welded??

cheers

[ditchyboy]

also if the sills are solid but covered in rust / slightly flakey underneath behind the kit how is best to treat this to keep it from getting worse??

[BriC]

also if the sills are solid but covered in rust / slightly flakey underneath behind the kit how is best to treat this to keep it from getting worse??

Get a wire brush on an angle grinder, and brush all the paint / rust off. Then paint over it - good as new

[ditchyboy]

bric - cheers for advice. also it has one of those plastic gap fillers you linked me to but it is too short for the gap so can see rust either side. Plus i do not think it looks a very good fit or the same as the rubber!! i would say the gap was at least 10cm long between rubber, would i just get 2 and cut to fit next to each other? worried water would get through.  any other way to do this? has yours got one of these in place? any pics?


cheers

[BriC]

My GTT hasn't got a windscreen in it atm :lol:

It's hard to judge without seeing it tbh, but if it doesn't look too bad, and the car is priced accordingly *personally* I wouldn't worry about it too much - just get it sorted as and when. My daily driver (a campus) has a rotten windscreen surround in places - it's pretty bad, but I'll sort it at some point