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Re: Quandry: Fix cosmetic rust or not? Posted by Snowmobile [Email]  (#686)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Snowmobile) on Thu, 10 Apr 2014 06:38:05
In Reply to: Re: Quandry: Fix cosmetic rust or not?, Almostretired, Wed, 9 Apr 2014 13:27:18 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Caveat - I have not owned a 9000, only looked at a few in the pick-n-pull. Fantastic build quality on those cars. I'm assuming metal and paintwork are similar to c900 (would have been common in the early years anyway).
The original paint on these cars is really good stuff. Super tenacious. If you can nip rust in the bud, they can last a really long time.
Sounds like the rust is pretty significant already if 6" are missing. Though it is not structural, it will spread, and things will start to fall apart. All that salt and slush gets in the hole and causes further problems. As a minimum you need to plug the hole.
So yeah, welding is what is needed to do this right - after cutting out *all* the rust (or the rust will come back). Imho that is a job for the pros. $850 sounds pretty reasonable given what you have described and depending on the details. It will come out more professional than if you DIY, but check the warranty - I think some places will not offer any warranty at all on rust work, and it would be a shame to spend $850 and have it come back in a year or 2. The longevity depends on the completeness of the work. $850 might be worth it if they do a really great job and you plan to keep the car. If you sell, 6" rust on the fender makes it a parts car to a lot of people, so more like $500 than $2000... maybe it is worth it to sell also.
We have a winter beater c900 that has a fender that is rough, but not that rough. There were several small holes and lots of surface rust, and breaking off stuff increased the size of the holes. There were a few similar places. 4 years ago, I did a hack job repair on it, and it is holding up pretty well. The key is to remove all the loose rust, clean it and POR all of the original metal. Then, what I did for the fender was fill the seam with expanding foam so water would not get in. Then fibreglass and then a bit of bondo to smooth things. It was a hack job and does not look perfect, but it has held up and cheaply kept this car on the road for 4 winters... until last fall when I discovered holes all through the floor! rusted from the inside (due to a brake line leak and water etc getting into the sponge mats under the carpets that never dry because they are rubber on top and metal below - like 2 vapour barriers in a house). So check under the carpets! Anyway.. I glassed the bottom of the car and threw out the sponges. Now it is a boat hull that still smells like fibreglass resin, but it's still going strong.
So that's where the judgement call comes in... think about what you want to get out of the car and what is worth doing. We'd all love to be able to do the amazing stuff Jon does (see link and photo below), but holy smokes, that takes some amazing skills, time, space, and patience!
Nice to keep these cars going. They are now becoming classics since they were produced by a dead artist!
http://www.nysocphotos.com/Jon-Williams-Garage
, Wed, 9 Apr 2014 09:20:44, Thu, 10 Apr 2014 06:54:21, Thu, 10 Apr 2014 06:38:05 <-- Viewing This Message
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