The Dartman's battle against rust (AKA do me a favor guys)

[The Dartman]

As some of you may have realized I have been away from the board for almost three weeks. In this time I have started a new job, and have undertaken the intial phase of painting my car.

Now, my car is an Iowa born and bred car, and I was expecting to find a lot of hidden rust. I will be replacing the quarters with 1/2 quarters from Classic Auto Body Panels (cheap but fairly well fitted for being $64 a side). After I cut the drivers side quarter off I realized the rust damage was MUCH MUCH worse than I had ever imagined. The truck extensions are shot (i suspected this), 90% of the wheel well lip is rusted off (can't even really attach new quarters), and to crown it off, the "rocker panel unibody" (for lack of a better term) cap is almost completly rusted away about a foot back. I have a ton of patch panels to fabricate just to get the car back on the road. For now I will patch the unibody as well as I can and just silicon the wheel wells. This is in addition to the already growing rust hole in the frame under my battery in the trunk!!

Anyway, I urge everyone to go out RIGHT NOW and vacuum out your truck panel extensions and possibly save your quarters, and I urge you guys to check the rest of your car out thoroughly anyway for any signs of preventable rust. Now not everybody has as much trouble with rust as much as I do in the midwest, but I'll sleep better knowing that there will Mopars out on the roads in the future (even if it may not be mine).

After telling my wife about the entensive damage to the frame and wheel wells, she sez "Well what else can you do to fix that? Back half the car and tub it out?". She's so cute when she talks cars!! At least she won't give me as much crap when I buy those $500 Strange axles.

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'73 Dart Sport
318 CU, 12.5:1, "J" Heads, 517L/292D Camshaft
727 trans, 4500 Tci Converter back to 4.30 gears for a best of 12.87@105

[440 demon]

Dartman,I feel your pain.I'm going through the same trouble you are.The trunk in my car was completely gone,but i didn't know the floor was untill i pulled the carpet back.I was heart broken.Both floor pans in front the drivers side between the seat and the door and the drivers side rear.That was last year ,the car was tubbed two years ago and i just finished putting the floor pans in back in january.
The mopar unibody is a engineering feat.Its light weight and strong but,a problem that i found when i cut the floor pans out was that the frame and crossmember were completely packed with dirt.The car has been garaged for the past 5 years so what was once wet was now hard as rock.I had to chip at it with a hammer and chisle.I did find on the drivers side frame two holes.Instead of paying 100.00 for the patch kit i used 1\8 x 3" flat stock and welded it into place.I saved about 80.00 bucks and it is very strong.
I've just about got all the rust out of my car but,it has been a job.Any place i found rust i cut it out and put new metal in place.It may take longer doing it this way but in the long run it won't come back and bite you in the ass.

[Christopher]

Living in Florida,we have rust to deal with too,although nowhere to the extent the people in the rust belt do.I'm a big proponent of using POR-15 on the inside of any body panels.This stuff is great and it works like it says.I highly recommend it's use!!