Rust. It’s up there with death and taxes.
When you see it, do you run and hide or fire up the welder, roll up your sleeves and get to work?
Have a great save regarding rust? Let’s see it.
Rust. It’s up there with death and taxes.
When you see it, do you run and hide or fire up the welder, roll up your sleeves and get to work?
Have a great save regarding rust? Let’s see it.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't have much experience working on cars, but I feel like it's important to remember that at some point, all the "rust-free" examples will disappear.
I know that if I want to play with old cars in the future, I'm going to have to deal with fixing the rust.
Or move. Rusty in California is near mint in Minnesota.
There's a huge difference between a super rusty 1938 Alfa vs. a 1968 Alfa. One would be restored with 100% certainty, even if the body doesn't exist anymore. The other will probably be left to turn into something else.
So the answer really depends.
Actually, many think the rust of my '99 Miata is too much- it would be fine for most pre-80 cars people like. And for me, it's the only car I bought new, so I'm happy to work on it. I've not had a monthly payment on it for almost 20 years now.
BTW, while getting rust off of fasteners is really important and cool- what about surface rust on body work? How does one hold the rust treatment on it for hours at a time? And also how does one treat the back side of a weld?
alfadriver said:BTW, while getting rust off of fasteners is really important and cool- what about surface rust on body work? How does one hold the rust treatment on it for hours at a time?
How bad is the surface rust you're talking about?
Cause.... here's a how-to
IMO if fasteners are rusty, replace them. If they are rusty then the plating is gone, if you don't re-plate then they will rust very quickly.
I used a chemical derusting on a set of head bolts for a 351C and the bolts were as rusty or worse inside of a week. Nothing to protect them from shop humidity.
I think with the Mini in the picture, the answer is "never, unless the VIN plate rusted away". After all, you can get new bodyshells and they're likely cheaper than repairing all that rust.
I think with other bread and butter classics that don't have that kind of parts availability, the boundary for me is if I can find better condition metal for less than it cost to repair what I have. At some point one has to admit that even for a hobby that doesn't make much financial sense, there are probably restorations that make even less sense.
I've been watching a German YouTube channel for a while that mostly deals with "Youngtimers" (which is what the German classic car people call stuff from the 80s and 90s, especially the ones that aren't eligible for historic plates yet). The main guy on the channel talks a lot about putting cars back on the road even if that means using the hot metal glue gun to put on another stamp size piece of metal, as the alternative is often to junk the car (keep in mind the pretty stringent inspections in Germany). And they've lost a lot of bread 'n butter classic family cars etc because of that. So I guess in the end it's do what you can and yet another incentive to learning to weld.
Mr_Asa said:alfadriver said:BTW, while getting rust off of fasteners is really important and cool- what about surface rust on body work? How does one hold the rust treatment on it for hours at a time?
How bad is the surface rust you're talking about?
Cause.... here's a how-to
That's about where I would change from treat to replace- I have a few places where it looks that treating will be fine- there are no holes. I'll give that a try. Thanks!
Pete. (l33t FS) said:IMO if fasteners are rusty, replace them. If they are rusty then the plating is gone, if you don't re-plate then they will rust very quickly.
I used a chemical derusting on a set of head bolts for a 351C and the bolts were as rusty or worse inside of a week. Nothing to protect them from shop humidity.
Has anyone tried using rust treatment to get fasteners apart? I may try that on my Miata's header bolts. But I'll change the nuts, and maybe the studs if they are really bad.
Big fan of new bolts when doing a resto.
However, in some cases the fasteners are devoted to a specific use and not easy to replace. Good example would be doing an interior or an engine rebuild. The best tool by far for this is the vibratory bowl filled with plain old sand-box sand. I give it two days in the bowl and they come out spotless. Also works for small brackets and other bits. Bought mine for under $100 on Amazon.
alfadriver said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:IMO if fasteners are rusty, replace them. If they are rusty then the plating is gone, if you don't re-plate then they will rust very quickly.
I used a chemical derusting on a set of head bolts for a 351C and the bolts were as rusty or worse inside of a week. Nothing to protect them from shop humidity.
Has anyone tried using rust treatment to get fasteners apart? I may try that on my Miata's header bolts. But I'll change the nuts, and maybe the studs if they are really bad.
I tried soaking some engine rotors in Evaporust to unlock the side seals. Didn't work.
Really annoyed at this because they are mythical 12A rotors with unworn seal slots. But the engine was stored outside without sealing the ports up, and the rust inside was horrible.
I did work with someone who used a hydrochloric acid dip to unseize a flagpole bearing. All it had to be able to do was move, so he neutralized it, pumped it full of grease, and called it good. I didn't want to acid dunk the rotors because it would potentially damage them.
Sold in 2013 for $57,000... so, no - no such thing as too rusty.
Wow - that Porsche looks like it was purchased just to get the serial number plate and registration - there wouldn't be much left of it in the final restored project.
Generally I would say that whether a car is too rusty to restore depends on what the final restoration costs compared to doing (or having done) a restoration on a more expensive starting car.
A hundred years ago Excellence did a resto of an early very rare 356. What they started out with was pathetic, bet they spent a hundred grand on parts and labor. I never understood why, think the shop did it to prove they could. I threw out a couple 914 tubs that were too far gone, the doors would not open until it was jacked up in the middle, watched the door gap grow by a half inch. Looking at 914 prices now they might have been worth fixing. So I guess the answer is anything can be repaired if enough money and time are spent. Why is the bigger question.
BoxheadTim said:I've been watching a German YouTube channel for a while that mostly deals with "Youngtimers" (which is what the German classic car people call stuff from the 80s and 90s, especially the ones that aren't eligible for historic plates yet).
What channel are you talking about ? I'm intrigued.
Appleseed said:Or move. Rusty in California is near mint in Minnesota.
People in FL be like "E36 M3s rusty" and I'm like "my last winter beater died because the front subframe rotted. In half".
Mndsm said:Appleseed said:Or move. Rusty in California is near mint in Minnesota.
People in FL be like "E36 M3s rusty" and I'm like "my last winter beater died because the front subframe rotted. In half".
I have replaced a lot of subframes for that. Neons and Civics that would blow one of the control arms off, N bodies that the rack mounts would break off... usually worked out to $300ish for the subframe, 6 hours or so of labor, plus incidentals like broken axles or fluid lines if they are in the way (always assume that power steering lines won't come out) or whathaveyou.
Just because a car has no rockers doesn't mean it isn't worth fixing. Even before COVID anything that passed emissions was worth $2000 even if the brakes were shot and the carpet was hanging through the floor...
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
This was a 1995 Ford Taurus. I paid $100 for it. I was ok with letting it go
bludroptop said:Sold in 2013 for $57,000... so, no - no such thing as too rusty.
And today, that's an easy six-figure Porsche.
That particular Speedster was alleged to have Roosevelt family and vintage racing provenance, so yeah - it makes financial sense... but I think building a new car around a salvaged serial number tag symbolizes everything that's wrong about collector cars.
I've definitely had some heaps that were too rusty for ME! And I've sent a few to the junkyard, too.
Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:BoxheadTim said:I've been watching a German YouTube channel for a while that mostly deals with "Youngtimers" (which is what the German classic car people call stuff from the 80s and 90s, especially the ones that aren't eligible for historic plates yet).
What channel are you talking about ? I'm intrigued.
The name of the channel is "Halle77 Dortmund". They are a car dealer, but pretty much all the content is fixing up interesting E36 M3boxes, err, lower priced classics. They also tend to be mildly modified - most of the cars they put together are at least lowered a bit. Sometimes they put them together stock like a recent Ro80, but other times, they take a 10V Urquattro and an Audi 200 parts car and turn the Urquattro into a legal 20V Urquattro.
I've never checked if they have English language closed captions - the language on the channel is German.
The owner of the place seems to have grow up with modified cars and like a few of us is now recreating some of the cars of his youth, only with a better budget compared to when he was 18, and the ones he couldn't afford back then.
I'm from the south but at the beach. Where a street car never sees rust if the owner doesn't drive through flood water, but a 4x4 will be dripping orange powder after a year or two.
I hate rust. If it's a car I plan to keep, I want a clean slate.
My neighbor the tow truck driver gets 4-6 years out of a 4x4 wrecker before they're unsalvageable, and he runs them through the car wash and flushes the bearing grease after wet recoveries.
If they can pull a P-38 out from under 268 ft of ice and make her fly again, anything is possible.
My WRX probably qualified as "too rusty".
I bought it after it had been in a frontal collision. It had new front strut assemblies and new front brakes. So someone thought it wasn't too rusty.
Not pictured: Structural integrity
We fix a lot of cars rusty beyond financial viability at Eclectic Motorworks, but luckily people still want to preserve the cars. This is our next big project, Jag XK120 (nod to frechyd).
As rusty as this car is, it's a good (but expensive) restoration candidate because it was low mileage and very very original and unmolested. It just rotted in a barn since the mid 1960s. We'll probably have 500-700 hours of metalwork in it and replace 60-70% of the metal, then it will go for body and paint for another couple hundred hours of labor.
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