Autobody geeks - can this be made any better?

tl;dr - can I make this better than it is?

lengthy post - my brother-in-law passed away 3 years ago and his first gen Scion xB with a manual trans has been sitting in the driveway since then. We have some kids in the family that turned 16 and I mentioned this would be an awesome first car. My nephew was just given this car by his aunt, so we have no money into it. He has no mechanical experience with cars and is super eager to learn, so we'll be using this car as a learning tool (changing brakes, oil, etc).

This car holds serious sentimental value for everyone in the family, so I don't mind sinking an absurd amount of time and effort into it. I have plenty of experience with mechanical work and a lift in my garage. The front subframe has some rot on it too, which we'll have to replace, but I'm not scared of that. I have zero experience with autobody outside of detailing. I have a crappy flux core welder that I can't really use but a strong desire to remedy that.

I put the car up in the air this morning and it's worse than I thought. This car has some massive plastic side skirts that completely cover the rocker panels. I pulled them off today and it was raining rust. There are almost no rocker panels left. One pinch weld that I had the jack pad on collapsed. The rust has also migrated to the front and rear fender, as you can see by those massive holes.

This car doesn't need to be concours quality or OEM quality or even crappy body shop quality, it just needs to hold together for a few years. I think I realize the massive uphill battle I'm in for here, but I'm also ignorant of any autobody work. So the ultimate question here is - can I make this better than it is or is it so far gone that isn't even possible?

Links to some pictures can be found below

https://imgur.com/a/raining-ruuussttt-KvnKFEP

Hey,

I would call the salvage yard and ask them to please pick up this rustbucket....

Rog

In reply to gh0st :

In Ohio we'd say that the car has "some rust" implying there are parts that do not have rust.  For a 20 yr old car around these parts that looks "typical."    Where are you located?

In general, the xB is a great kid car and learn how car.  As for fixing the rust, you likely wont be able to.  Nature will take its course but I don't think the party is over yet.  

In reply to gh0st :

Please - do yourself and your family a favor and give that car a long overdue funeral.  Send it off with full sentimentality, to the automotive heaven (or hell).  Have a wake, decorate it with pictures of hour  lost family member, and get it gone!  With the rust you see on the body panels, there will be corroded, and stuck fasteners EVERYWHERE.  And structurally, it definitely looks like it would collapse.

I have worked on rusty cars.  They are not fun.  You are likely to kill any desire of the young person's if you start on it.  If you shop around, you can find many cars that do not have rust that are well used, and can be a great mechanical education, for not much money.

If I was unclear, read again.  :-)

Ooof yeah thats rough. 

If you are feeling frisky, you may be able to get new panels from Toyota, weld them in, so on so forth, but it would 100% be a labor of love.  

Other likely more McBudget option would be to head down south, buy another one, cut what you need, and go from there.

Its a fortunately simple enough little car, but I would plan on basically dropping both subframes, pull the doors, hood, hatch, pull the fuel system, etc.  Gonna need a rust free donor.  

Alternate option if the interior is super cherry is to source another black one, swap some of the interior bits over, stuff your BIL touched - shifter, seat, steering wheel, pedals, hvac - and have a spiritual successor with a different VIN.  

16 year old drivers tend to have accidents. I'd say that a good condition 1st gen Xb would be a marginal car to put them into, and one that's  structurally compromised by rust much worse. 

Rather than trying to splice this one together, I'd look for a non-rusty one with a bad engine, trans etc and move the mechanical parts over. 

A typical Fb find here in Northern Ohio 

Knock off the loose rust, hose it down with surface shield and slap the plastic panels back over it.

EvanB said:

Knock off the loose rust, hose it down with surface shield and slap the plastic panels back over it.

I agree. My daily driver is a near twin to this car with a lot less rust. If it isn't into the suspension pickup points in the rear, I'd treat what's there and run it. Replacement metal sadly isn't available for these, but people have had luck using GMT800 or 2nd gen Neon rocker panels and cutting/beating them into shape. 

Here's some inspiration, if you're into that sort of thing:

I will say though that if you decide not to put it back on the road, it is worth a fair amount in parts. The manual transmissions aren't cheap, nor are a lot of the trim parts. I had to buy a wrecked parts car to get what I needed to put this one back on the road.

I'm going to be the voice of unreason here.  If the rust is too bad maybe it could be a drivetrain donor for a family Challenge build.

In reply to Powar :

Looking over the rest of the car there doesnt seem to be too much horrific rust elsewhere. The front subframe will need to be replaced but those are easily found. It's just the body that is falling apart

That is going to be a pile of $$$ to fix.  I would make one last batch of memories and give it a Viking funeral.  
 

My guess is you would be close to 10k to have that fixed.  

The inner rocker is probably in decent shape, the intermediate rocker clearly shows rust and the outer rocker is gone. Those rockers are board straight,too. I'd cut out the outer and intermediate and weld in some thin wall square tubing. Patch the fender bits and run her 'til she dies. It's a good car to learn to drive a stick, they're handy little beggars (my wife drives one), they're dependable as an anvil, and a good place to learn new skills without sacrificing an expensive vehicle to learn on. It's just a matter of how much time you and the kid are willing to invest...........or, do what Stampie said.

If this didn't have sentimental value, I would 100% recommend against any effort to keep it. 

This is the area that SCARES me the most:

The two lines emphasis the rear axle, which mounts to the unibody structure in the circle area.  It has to pivot and carry the weight of the car (of that corner) in that area. 

I would just do as someone else recommends, put the plastic panels back on, INSPECT this area closely, and then scrap it once  it's too far gone.  Unless you spend SERIOUS time and HUGE money, it'll never be right.

Stampie's suggestion of an engine donor for another car would keep the sentimental value alive in a better non-rusty wrapper.

Another member of the Too Rusty,  Drivetrain Donor camp.

Anything can be done if it is a labour of love. I fixed this.

I would not fix that Scion.

I am awful at bodywork, but I'm a whiz with physics. 

Remove rusty parts, replace with DOM tubing, angle iron, steel plate, whatever. Cover with plastic and/or bondo, and drive it. 

I bought a first gen xB when I was still married to my ex. It was used with something like 60k. When we divorced, it had 160k, and the only thing she had to replace was the hatch handle. The hatch had frozen shut and she pulled a bit too hard.

As of a couple years ago, it had 250k, still on the original clutch, and I'm certain she did the absolute minimum maintenace (oil changes, brakes when the inspection said they were needed) and it refused to die. It developed a small rust hole in the muffler, but the rest of the car was rock solid. She finally decided to ditch it because she gently rear-ended someone and it pushed the radiator support back and put a hole in the radiator. She could afford the radiator, but the shop quoted her the body work to re-position the core support and she bailed. I told her she could have fixed it with a $4 BFH from HF, but she wasn't into it.

In hindsight I should have given her the $250 she got from the scrap yard and made it a challenge car.

xBs are cockroaches. Weld some goobers in it and let the young'n learn.

The rockers are an important structural part. If it were just the outers, like most GM pickups I see, you could just weld some new ones in. But that has progressed into the inner rockers. You really want to put a kid in something that is wholly unsafe? Because that is.

I generally have respect for Toyota products, but the Xb is a real flimsy piece of crap. I've seen lots of them crashed in my line of work, and they are not sturdy when they aren't riddled with rust like that one.

Send it to the scrap yard where it can't hurt anyone.