Howdy,

Sorry if this is covered somewhere else.

I finally got my car up on cribs, and took lots and lots of pictures underneath. Thankfully, the rust looks mostly manageable. The only severe rusting underneath is on the passenger front jack point, where I can poke carpet, and the rear bumper area.

I'm worried about this:



There's rusting and what appears to be abrasion damage, where the undercoating is stripped away, aft of those marked points.

Here's the right side:



And the left:



Is there metal missing here or is this rusting/damage as a result of the car bottoming out at one point? I don't have a reference picture to compare mine to.

Thanks in advance.

 

Yes you are missing a portion of the frame rail.

Hopefully these pics can give you an idea of what is missing. Compare it with the rusty outline in your pics and you'll see where the rail was.








Good luck, I hope you do body work.

 

I would have this car throughly inspected for hidden rust especially at the suspension mounting points. As you can see the metal can be severely rusted under the undercoating. Rust at structural points can be unsafe especially in an accident.

 

Thanks, all. UGH. Why the hell would that be missing is the question I have now. Grog, I don't do body work but I do now. This is going to be a lot of fun.

redhatch_1964, thanks. Yeah I'm going over everything with a fine-toothed comb at this point and making the plan for restoration. As it stands now, at least the carpet and the seats and rear area and all trim is coming out, and I'm going to learn MIG welding. Such a great opportunity!

Little things like missing part of the frame rail are going to make this even more interesting.

Thanks again!

 

HAHAH, still laughing about this one. It has just the right almost sarcastic undertone of, "you're f-ed". Yeah, this is my learning car. I will have done "body work" when it's all said and done.

Good thing it's a project car that I'm restoring.

Cheers.

 

Sorry I wasn't trying to be rude.

On the bright side its just the underbody so it doesn't have to be pretty, it just needs to be strong and sealed.

By the way you'll probably want to remove or pull back the carpet so it doesn't catch fire. Disconnect the battery too.

As refeyggn mentioned check the whole car for rust before you get too deep into it.

 

Grog:

Oh, haha, no worries! I didn't take it as rude at all. I'm simply chuckling about what I don't know and will have to learn.

Yeah I have another rust area on the front passenger floor side, so the plan was to pull out the seats, carpeting, trim, etc.

I really appreciate your advice!

 

Good luck man id be looking for another body to swap everything over