Cancer in suspension

Hi,

I am a newbie as I just brought home my latest addition to my garage. It is is very good shape all around, body is a 8+ or 9 out of 10, all trim is in place, top will hold up for at least another 1 o 2 years. The interior is definitely tired and worn, but I would give it a 5 out of 10. She is an automatic with a 170 and she hums right along rather nicely. After I got her home yesterday I noticed that the frame under the drivers side has rusted away (not sure how I missed that after all the time I took to review her before buying her). There seems to be some serious cancer in place which makes me think, 1.- can anything be done w/o spending a fortune ? after what I saw I am sure there must be more it is just a matter of getting her up on the rack at the local body shop.

Question is, where should I take her to get a fair estimate, is this common (I know it's a 40+ year old car) has anyone replaced their frame or at least sections of it ?

Any and all help is always appreciated.

Thanks

Take it to Elliot at Elhot Metal Fab for a look. He can take care of it. It's just a matter of cutting out the bad steel and replacing it with good.

thanks pbrown,
does that mean that the frame is welded to the body vs. bolted ? (uniframe, unibody)
also, any recomendations on who to take it to down here in So Cal? I assume the shop you recomended is local to you in Seattle..

thanks again
Erick

Erick,

Yeah, I think Patrick missed your introduction thread where you said you were in SoCal.

I suspect this section of frame is the part that is about 2-1/2 wide and 1-1/2 thick and comes down from and disappears up to where the engine bay is and stops by rounding off just below where your feet are? If so, this is the rear part of the front frame rail and is a part of the unibody frame. It stops under your feet and then uses the rest of the floor as "part of the frame" until it picks back up again in the torque boxes where the front of the rear leaf springs connect. Fortunately the whole body and floor are "one" and as such, unless you have a lot of torque coming from that whopping 170, you'll not likely twist the car in half and may have never realized a problem. Good thing is, these can be fabricated by any good welding shop in about an hour. So it shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg, or your first born child.

If the part you are talking about is the part of the frame just below the sill of the door, that is far more complex, but still not a huge task for a good weld shop to cut out the bad and weld in some new.

These parts of the unibody frame were galvanized as well, which should have kept them from rusting away, but that only lasts so long when you're using floor jacks and what-not on these areas and scraping the galvanizing away. I also don't know how well they galvanized it. They didn't plan for a car to last 50 years.

Please be forewarned that grinding and welding on galvanizing is pretty hazardous, so take precautions by using face and dust masks if grinding and cutting, and evacuating the smoke away from you (or the welder) when welding it.

You can also take some pictures of the extent of damage and we can advise further.

Thanks Roger,

The portion that I found to be the worse is right under the door sill and looked frighteningly bad as I have never seen that kind of rust damage being from Los Angeles. I looked at the rest of the car and there are other similar spots on the passengers side, but not quite as bad as the drivers side. I located a couple local frame/body shops in town and will be visiting one of them on Saturday and will take some pictures while it's on the rack (for show and tell). And you are correct my whopping 170 is not putting any undue torque on the frame except when I pull wheelies (yeah right..). Over all she drives very nice and quiet and I would have never guessed the rust was there as I have no squeaks coming from anywhere (yet).

Thanks for the info as at first I was feeling ill and thinking that I may have to junk her, the thought now is more on the side of, should I have her painted while she is in there? might make sense.

Thanks again for your input and stay tuned for the pictures after I visit the shop this Saturday.

They even make repair panels for the rockers so it must be a regular repair. I just checked Rockauto.com and they go for $36 per side... They still need to be welded in, just wanted you to know you are not facing anything unusual.

Thanks Jeff

I have recently received a few catalogs like Dearborn Classics and I see that panels and other skins are a norm, so I may be ordering a few parts from there and Rockauto as well.

thanks again and stay tuned for pictures this weekend.

Erick

So I visited 3 frame shops in the local area where I live and got the same bad news from all three. They didn't even want to put it on the rack after their initial peek under the car. Looks like the frame, floor pans and they even pointed out the inner fender wells are either eaten or 3/4 way eaten away. They said that they really would not have anywhere to start welding pieces to. the concensus was that I would be looking at minimum 10k and that would just be the starting point. The same question came up time and time again, "how much do you like the car and where would you want to draw the line at". Other than that, they all raved about how good the car looks from the outside and how it sounds. Either way, it was not good news for me.

So I have 2 options left, a) keep the car and use it over the summer and then sell it, although I am not sure how much to ask for it considering of the news I just received. Mind you, the engine is rebuilt, so is the transmission, new brakes all around, new tires, shocks and even the top works just fine. b) cut my losses and put it up for sale as it sits.

Perhaps someone has a convertible and is looking to transplant some of my pieces into theirs or something like that.

Sorry I did not post any pictures, but I will take some pictures and post them.

Does anyone have any suggestions or have an alternative to this predicament ?

Thanks again for all your input as it is appreciated.

Erick :NERVOUS:

It would be really helpful to have you post some pictures, for sure. Post as many as you can.

3 shops would seem to point to being at least getting one of them to tell you the truth about how bad it is. We've all experienced rot, and fixed it, so it can be done. Some are just worse than others and do get to the point at times to say "is this worth it." With it being a convertible, it is worth more than a sedan, that's for sure.

Convertibles also have extra undercarriage support in order to keep, for one thing, the door opening from closing up over time, so that's a good thing going for it.

Perhaps it is time to pick up a small portable mig welder and learn to weld. It's not really all that hard. With this being the floor, and with most of the parts available to fix it, you could do it yourself - and save!

Here are some initial pictures of the drivers side undercarrige of my bird. It pains me just to post them. The passenger side is almost in the same condition, I will post the rest of the shots I took tonight

thanks guys

here are more shots from the drivers side and the passenger's side.

this is the Passenger's side

well, oddly enough the body still lines up really nice, thise shots are of the doors and hood and all of them are still squared really nice.

Well... that's pretty bad. What's the floor look like inside under the carpets? Just as bad?

You can thank (or curse) how stiff they make the convertibles. It has kept it from folding in on itself and from you realizing anything was wrong before you bought it.

Honestly the part that concerns me the most (on a scale of 1-10; a 10) is the section where the rear leaf spring bolts to the body. If you had anything fixed right away, it would be that section. Don't worry about pretty, think about safe. Most of the rest of it could probably be patched section by section and then just drive it while you do that.

And to be more brutally honest, what you overlooked will unlikely to be overlooked again. So as bad as it actually is (the rest about a 8 or 9) will make the car very unfavorable for someone who's not very capable or very rich, or both. Not sure what you paid for it, but that could make a 50-70% difference in the value; especially if the floors are gone as well.

One could weld up a sub-frame connector to help add some strength and then using something like angle-iron and flat metal and weld up the rest of it and use some heavy tar to make the rest of it... disappear... and again, drive it.
:(

I'm afraid I have to agree with Roger, it's not pretty.

I would also question the story the past seller gave you about the recent engine and transmission rebuild. Judging by the build-up on the oil pan and transmission, I'm thinking the "rebuild" may have been in the late 1980's.

I'm not sure what to advise. Maybe chalk it up to a learning experience. Click and Clack from Car Talk highly recommend getting a "pre-sale" inspection. I think this hold especially true for a vintage car. That is IF you can find a shop that knows these pre-computer cars.

The floor pans under the carpet actually look normal but I have not removed the seats to see what it looks like either.

I found a frame/body shop close to home where I'll take it at the end of the week. The feedback I got was the same as in this forum, convertibles are mostly susceptible to rust, I shared pictures with them and they want to get a close inspection to see if we can put in place a game plan. Repairing pieces at a time so that the cost is not overwhelming. All in all I think that this visit will help me decide what to do with her, whether there is an action plan or whether she goes up for sale to someone who needs a lot of good parts and will scrap when done.

I'll post my findings this saturday, stay tuned


:confused:

Well, I located a body-frame-hot rod shop about 6 miles from here in Canyon Country. We put her up on the rack and saw all the cancer. Looks like the repair is doable as you guys knew it would be, but it won't be cheap. The Rocker panels, both rear quarter panels, the floor boards and a couple other supports. Not to mention anything else that is presently not visible like interior panels.

I thought about it and decided to look down the road and go for it. The car was left at the shop this morning and further inspection will be done this week in order to determine the action plan. The plan will be to repair all of the frame rot that is presently making the car unsafe. Depending on how much we spend there I'll think about having her repainted.

More details to come.

Stay tuned

The pain of writing the check is only temporary. Next year you won't even remember how much it cost - you will just be enjoying sun on your neck and the wind in your face. Keep us updated.

Ok, so the frame shop has taken a good crack at listing what we will need to get going on bringing her back on track and even suggested possibly getting a donor car. Here is what they listed:

Rear frame assembly,
Complete floor assembly from firewall to rear bumper
Right and left inner and outer rockers
Left and right rear quarter panels
Outer wheel wells
Rubber body mount kit

1.- do you guys know who may have some of these pieces ?
2.- what other cars use the same parts (comet & mustang?)
3.- can non convertible cars be used to find these pieces?
4.- will parts from a falcon or comet wagon work?

I will start calling the local wrecking yards tomorrow.

thanks guys....

Erick

I'm sure that a lot of the parts are interchangeable underneath for the 60-65 cars. Most of the changes you'll find are above the rocker. I looked under my wagon and compared some of what I could to your pictures. All similar enough to use as patch pieces. Most of the floor panels are available new.

Some of the photo's you took don't show the evidence for all that you list they claim is absolutely needed, but I'm sure they've pointed a lot of that out to you in person. Right?

Looks like this guy is in Northern Cal... but worth a call.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/pts/1700711643.html

There is also Ron at NW Falcons - He may have what you need if you act fast. He is in Portland OR. - here is a link to a discusion about his last days...

http://www.rainierfalcons.com/forums...ead.php?t=1207

Looks to be a lot of work, but don't despair. I have been working on my sedan delivery and put a bunch of pics up here. Roger has seen it in person, and I have replaced all the floors and will work on the rear quarters soon. It is a bunch of work but I feel worth it in the end. Just work on a section at a time and don't look at the rest till you get to it.
I actually found a donor car with no title, but pretty rust free, and just cut off what I needed. Saved me thousands of $$$ versus buying new panels. Good Luck and keep asking these guys the questions. Most of them have been there done that.:BEER: