New addition to the "family". Rust repair? Some tricky spots...

[diesel4me]

You might have had an injector get stuck and it flodded that cylinder,it'll make a bad knock that rounds like a bad rod bearing when they do that...sounds like some crud held the injector open,then it finally washed thru...could have been a chunk of carbon that broke loose in the cylinder or under the head of a intake valve too..

My older brother had a 307 V8 in a '68 Impala,one day at McDonalds some friends with muscle cars pulled along side of his car and they all started revving their engines up to the redline just for kicks...suddenly,after he let off the gas,his engine starts rapping BAD,so he shut it right off,and he had it towed to his garage...next day he pulls the engine out,took it ALL apart,and found NO sign of bearing wear or scores on the crank,the oil pump was fine,no crud in it ,etc..when he took the drivers side head off,he saw a chunk of carbon that was shaped like a half-moon--and under the head of the intake valve there was a blob of charcoal looking crud stuck to it,with a half moon peice missing !..he did a quickie valve job,just took all the valves out and wire brushed the carbon off the intakes,and lapped them,then itteraly threw it back together,and it ran a lot better than ever before,and no more noises!...I bet a bit of Marvel Mystery oil dumped down the carb and some "goosing" would have "fixed" it without doing anything!..but he feared the worst and didn't want to ruin the engine had it really spun a bearing..

 

[cdoggwsu]

Bringing this back up.

It's been running great since that weird knocking issue but now I need some opinions from the autobody guys. As you can see from the previously posted pics it's got some rust spots in tricky places. The one that concerns me the most is right below the rear window channel. I swung by a local body shop for an opinion and they seemed to think the only way to fix it would be to cut out the entire rear quarter and start over. I'd much rather keep the good steel and factory seams and just repair the damaged areas with some good patches from a junkyard rig or something. Is that really out of the question?

The next area is the doors. Being that they've rusted right where they sit against the weatherstripping, what amount of prep/painting/sealing could be done to ensure that they don't continue to erode? I'm guessing the only good answer is to replace the doors with rust-free? They are more than just surface rusted...there is quite a bit of pitting. I just smeared them with grease to seal and keep water out for the time being.

 

[crawlink5]

You can fix that no problem if the inside steel is good. Otherwise you'll have to keep cutting until it is all out.

 

[diesel4me]

Most body shops here sont want to fix rotted areas,they know it will return and they will have an unsatisfied customer--so what most do is either quote an outrageous price,hoping to scare you off--or want to chop off an entire panel,rather than peice meal a patch or tepair panel onto it..(kind of like a surgeoun,they would rather remove an organ than try to fix one!)..

...this brought about a few places that specialize in rust repairs ,that dont mind peicing old rusted vehicles back together again..
I have always done it myself,its a hell of a lot cheaper,though you do need a welder or torches and some skillsmthat you'll quickly aquire once you start doing it...

Doors are a lot easier to just replace than fix--if you live where rust free ones can still be foiund I'd just buy them and swap them on,where yours are rusted will not be an easy fix..a door skin or rot elsewhere could be repaired,but where the rubber weatherstrip goes will not be wasy,unless you just slathered som,e Tiger Hait or Fiberglass filler over it after sandblasting it--it'll rot afain in no time though..

If the rear quarters only need a small patch on the outer skin only,its not that hard to put a repair panel on one--if the rust ate away the inner panel too,I'd say the whole quarter would be better off replaced,or at least the rotted portion of it..

The only rotted area on my '85 Burb are inside the rear wheel arches,the outside is starting to bubble though,and I know once I start trying to repair the area inside,Ill probably have some holes on the outer skin too..I'm just going to use galvanized metal and pop rivets,because its not worth it to me to do it "right"...its an old truck and I'm sure it's ripe in other spots I haven;t looked closely at..

I might not even keep the truck ,now that my sight is poor and I have had it 2 years already,and haven't had the funds to register it..or it may just end up being a yard plow..