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Rust Bucket headaches (Now Fixed)



Even if you can't source a clean cradle, or don't want to pay for one, you're probably not going to get a good repair on the old cradle with it still in the car. You need to get to it from all sides to grind and weld.

I would also be checking out the strut mounts and attachment points for the rear suspension.
 
Blue85 said:


Even if you can't source a clean cradle, or don't want to pay for one, you're probably not going to get a good repair on the old cradle with it still in the car. You need to get to it from all sides to grind and weld.

I would also be checking out the strut mounts and attachment points for the rear suspension.
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That looks deceptively easy. Will hafta give that a try (and I will also check out the rear mounts before I sink time into the front).

Either way, it's going to be a while before I get it pieced back together.
 
My friend has a sister who likes Saturns,and has owned several of the later 90's models..around here they are common,and relatively "cheap" to buy a decent used one from private parties or ones traded in at dealers...they hold up darn good for being a "cheap" car,the engines seem to be pretty reliable..the transmissions can act up,but you can score a good one cheap around here..

---after patching up the same spot on her first one long ago,eventually it became rusted elsewhere and the integrity of the front suspension was not exactly good or safe any more,and she came across another car the same year on craigslist that was in mint condition body & frame,and interior wise--but the engine had been ran too low on oil,and seized--she got it for 250 bucks,which was more than its value in scrap at the time..

My friend swapped her engine into it,kept the transmission for a spare,and she drove that one almost 5 years..her engine had low miles,but the car had sat a lot,being elderly owned,and the body & unibody suffered...the craigslist car was garaged all the time,and had blown the engine at relatively low miles,the owners teen age son ran it low on oil..

My friend has swapped a few cradles in Saturns when it made more sense than to waste time welding up extensive rusted areas,and he had to remove it anyway to weld it...local salvage yards dont charge much for one in good condition (100 bucks is what he paid for one in real good condition,and all the bolts and body mount bushings & spacers were included and in nice shape too..as long as the part of the car the cradle bolts too isn't also rotted,that's the way to go if you want to keep it a longer time..
 
diesel4me said:
My friend has a sister who likes Saturns,and has owned several of the later 90's models..around here they are common,and relatively "cheap" to buy a decent used one from private parties or ones traded in at dealers...they hold up darn good for being a "cheap" car,the engines seem to be pretty reliable..the transmissions can act up,but you can score a good one cheap around here..

---after patching up the same spot on her first one long ago,eventually it became rusted elsewhere and the integrity of the front suspension was not exactly good or safe any more,and she came across another car the same year on craigslist that was in mint condition body & frame,and interior wise--but the engine had been ran too low on oil,and seized--she got it for 250 bucks,which was more than its value in scrap at the time..

My friend swapped her engine into it,kept the transmission for a spare,and she drove that one almost 5 years..her engine had low miles,but the car had sat a lot,being elderly owned,and the body & unibody suffered...the craigslist car was garaged all the time,and had blown the engine at relatively low miles,the owners teen age son ran it low on oil..

My friend has swapped a few cradles in Saturns when it made more sense than to waste time welding up extensive rusted areas,and he had to remove it anyway to weld it...local salvage yards dont charge much for one in good condition (100 bucks is what he paid for one in real good condition,and all the bolts and body mount bushings & spacers were included and in nice shape too..as long as the part of the car the cradle bolts too isn't also rotted,that's the way to go if you want to keep it a longer time..
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Yeah, we may well swap the good drivetrain over to another donor car. They're pretty cheap to come by. Oil leakage is common, so finding sub-$500 cars with blown engines is easy enough. Here is a current ad from downstate:

$50 2001 Saturn - $50 (Madison)
2001 Satern sl1

condition: salvage
fuel: gas
paint color: blue
size: sub-compact
title status: clean
transmission: automatic


Need gone this weekend only thing wrong is the engine blew the best way to contract me is by text
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So we'll be doing some noodling to figure out how to best proceed. Rust is this car's only problem, we like all other aspects. I was hoping to get 30,000 miles out of it before it rusted in half, but perhaps our 5,000 miles is all we're gonna get. :dunno:
 
Don't understand why they continue to use salt on the roads. Lived in Alaska for a few years and they never did. Cars weren't nearly as rusty. Would put down pea gravel or occasionally sand. Worked ok, just adjust your driving style a bit.
 
I see vehicles from NH,VT,and Maine in much better condition rust wise than here,they have enough sense to know how to DRIVE and not need salted sandy roads in the more rural areas...
The larger cities and towns here dump thousands of tons on every street,because the yuppies cant even drive a 4x4 SUV on a road with 1" of snow on it.....then they whine that bridges are crumbling..:surepal:..

It's all a scheme to keep new vehicles selling more,the construction crews rebuilding roads and bridges that take decades to finish instead of a year,and if newer vehicles didn't use recycled crap metal ,they would hold up a lot better even under excessive salt baths...planned obsolesence..:(..
 
JoshHefnerX said:
Don't understand why they continue to use salt on the roads. Lived in Alaska for a few years and they never did. Cars weren't nearly as rusty. Would put down pea gravel or occasionally sand. Worked ok, just adjust your driving style a bit.
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Would be a fan of that.

I grew up on rural roads that weren't salted. Town roads were. Got the best of both worlds, always preferred the unmaintained roads to the overly-salted ones. But that's just me, the city never thought that way.
 
I dream of the day we start using solar power to heat our roads. No more salt no more plows no more ice no more gravel.
 
blazinzuk said:
I dream of the day we start using solar power to heat our roads. No more salt no more plows no more ice no more gravel.
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Man, I can see that working in a lot of areas, but we just don't get a lot of sun during the colder months. Or the spring. Or the fall.

Hard to justify solar panels along the Lake shore. Further inland it makes a lot more sense.
 
Years ago a civil engineering student and me produced a theoretical school project.

It was using solar panels to melt roadways. The construction costs were astronomical. But once in place the actual energy needed to maintain heat in a road is not large.

But it's a fantasy for now retro fitting is still in the several hundred thousand dollar range per mile
 
I am glad you clarified. I thought you had lost your mind. Mammoth California put radiant heat in their sidewalks on the main street. Never froze over.
 
ktmoutfront said:
I am glad you clarified. I thought you had lost your mind.
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Yeah, the car may or may not ever drive again. Not sure at this point, and not gonna be looking at it again until June. 'Tis a bummer, though. :dunno:

I'm definitely in favor of drastically limiting if not eliminating the salting of roads. I see the benefits, but I just don't think they're significant enough to justify the cost, hassle, dump-truck collisions, and dangerous rust bucket cars that result.
 
JoshHefnerX said:
Don't understand why they continue to use salt on the roads. Lived in Alaska for a few years and they never did. Cars weren't nearly as rusty. Would put down pea gravel or occasionally sand. Worked ok, just adjust your driving style a bit.
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Here in Alberta 95% of what they use on the roads here is sand/pea gravel. We still get rust here, but almost exclusively caused by the sand/pea gravel removing paint/undercoat etc and the bare steel just dong it's normal thing. Still better than salt though...but it's hell on windshields.
 
tRustyK5 said:
Here in Alberta 95% of what they use on the roads here is sand/pea gravel. We still get rust here, but almost exclusively caused by the sand/pea gravel removing paint/undercoat etc and the bare steel just dong it's normal thing. Still better than salt though...but it's hell on windshields.
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I don't have much comparison, but salt isn't nice to glass either. Is the sand worse than the salt? :dunno:
 
campfire said:
I don't have much comparison, but salt isn't nice to glass either. Is the sand worse than the salt? :dunno:
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Sandblasting ring any bells. We have salt brine and beet juice and gravel for the most part.

Under a certain temp salt doesn't do much, I think that's around 15° so salt is ineffective. In December and January here its more about maximizing traction on the ice that exists rather than clearing it
 
blazinzuk said:
Sandblasting ring any bells. We have salt brine and beet juice and gravel for the most part.

Under a certain temp salt doesn't do much, I think that's around 15° so salt is ineffective. In December and January here its more about maximizing traction on the ice that exists rather than clearing it
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I have always assumed that salt blasting was more destructive than sand blasting because, while both remove the paint, the salt then attaches to any wet metal and corrosion sets in. But I have no real data to support this, it's just a hypothesis.
 
Salt is way more corrosive. Like Eric said below a certain temp (-9 celcius) salt is ineffective, so it's all about embedding grit into the ice/hardpack. Sand is much nicer to sheet metal for two reasons I can think of. One, salt is naturally corrosive, sand is inert. Two, salt can dissolve into a liquid and get much deeper into the sheet metal structure of a car. I'll take the sand any day...

You do see rusty cars here, but to be honest most came from back east where salt is used a lot. A true Alberta car or truck stays very solid for a long time.
 
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