well hopefully it wont be raining this weekend- plan on removing rockers to assess the rust damages . pass side jack hole is pretty much gone i figure , since i can almost yank out the jack tube . hopefully it wont be as bad as im expecting , car doesnt seem to have much rust issues in the areas i see folks have most ( trunk floors/floorpans/battery tray area) i was actually surprised to see the battery tray holding its own well, could this be due to the rain cover on the engine cover still being in place?i DO need to replace the drain funnels tho- both are ripped and taped back together with electrical tape - might be able to replace those with some plastic tubing from work tho- funnel ends are ok still as are the brackets that hold them

either way the floors are gonna get a coat of POR 15 along with the battery tray and engine bay firewalls- more as a preventative measure than anything-anywhere rust might try to hide

Make sure you post picks, reading these rust repair threads will hopefully give me the courage to do my own rust repairs as soon as time allows...

well right now we is digi cam poor- daughters bit the dust and not gettin a new one til later this month - but ill see what i can do just the same

might have to hold off on any work til we can take pics to post lol

Since I don't have welding equipment (yet) not to mention the fact that I haven't learned how to weld (will be taking a class in a few months), I'm wondering what the best approach is to deal with my car's rust issues.

There is a dime size hole in the trunk along with some surface rust in there as well.

I also have a couple of spots in the floorbaord behind the driver seat that has rusted all the way through. The inner longs look ok at first glance, haven't been able to remove the rocker panels yet to look at the outer longs due to a few nasty bolts (the ones on the underside of the panels) that have decided not to budge. Going to have to drill them out at some point.

My question is this: Should I go ahead and remove all of the tar off of the floor panels, remove the undercoating, grind all of the rust out BEFORE learning how to weld?

While the car is garaged, it is Seattle after all and fairly humid (read raining nonstop) and I don't want to get all of the rust off just to have exposed metal start rusting. Yet not doing anything of course is allowing the rust to continue to eat away at the good stuff.

Should I remove all of the rust, por15 the areas that I'm not going to weld to protect them, and then use some kind of mild rust inhibitor to treat the areas that I am going to weld later on? The idea being that I'll need clean exposed metal to weld to, and maybe I'll be able to use something (a torch?) to clean the areas that were treated with the milder rust inhibitor before welding? Or should I just wait to do anything for 5-6 months or so when I might have enough skills to attempt some welding?

good questions- i d say probly go with removing rusted metals and using a rust inhibitor or POR 15 even then prep it to weld after you learn how. others who have already done repairs tho would probly be more knowledgable on these things. just i think it would be better to stop and try to stop any further rust building as oppsed to leaving it alone- if its not TOO bad you can probly just let it be for now as long as its kept pretty dry

Yea you will be fine grinding the rust of for a couple of months with out it getting bad again. I had the same problem with my car i put a jack handle in the jack plug and stepped down and the jack hole hit the floor. After removing the plug there will be a hole in the side of the longitudinal it worried me at first but after looking at it is still sound even with all of the metal that was ruined by rust my auto body teacher took a look and said it is just as strong as stock. So i made 2 plates one for each side that cover up the hole in the side and welded the plates in. Then i bought some rubber undercoating and covered the parts that had bear metal showing. I was going to replace the jack hole with the new one before i made the plates but there is no way to get to the top to weld you would have to take the door sill and quarterpanels off. I also think it will look cool with the rocker completely smooth no holes. Hey rjames dont worry about the welding to much you wont have to wait to lond before you can weld it up welding is a peice of cake. Also before yor drill out the screws on the rocker try penetrating lube a vice grips it worked for me.
Good luck, rust is a bitch