Was there "Danger to Manifold" when this happened?
Was there "Danger to Manifold" when this happened?
Well, let me see if I can dig up photos of all of the rusted apart 2nd-gen Neon subframes (the part where the front of the control arm breaks free, at the bend where it meets the straight section - instant axle disassemblage), or the Cavalier/Sunfire subframe breakage ("ears" that go up to the body rust off, usually the car drives just fine) or the Grand Cherokee front control arm mount failures or the Dodge vans that rust the steering box mount area free of the truck, or or or or...
Another big one is N?-body subframes (Malibu/Grand Am/Alero) that the rack mounts rust completely off leaving you with no steering...
Here is the floorboard from the 1982 Toyota Corolla I used the drivetrain from for my Locost donor:
Somewhere I have pics of my Jensen Healey when I got it. The rockers were basically missing, it was so bad that the 'box' across the car behind the seats had cracks where the trans tunnel was bending it. The trans tunnel was the only structural strength left. When I started pulling the carpet off to remove the rockers, long strips of what used to be metal came with them. I found balls of aluminum foil inside them, somewhere along the line someone had shoved them in so the fiberglass patches would hold their shape as they hardened.
Hungary Bill wrote:
I saw this pic and said, hey that's a k car, before I went back and saw Silverfleet's post.
I passed a fairly new GM van yesterday that was missing the bottom 4 inches of everything. All the doors were rotten, the rocker panels were gone, even the bumpers were missing large chunks. I was amazed it had SC plates on it. No pictures though, sorry.
My 76 MGB when I bought it for the 2nd time. I had been thinking a mild V8 when I rebought it. Not a chance. Ended up getting parted and scrapped.
I have a theory to floorboards rusting through. They don't rust from the outside in, they rust from the inside out. Usually, the driver's side is worse than the passenger. You get in, with sloppy, salty, wet boots. They drip off, onto the carpet, soaking through and keeping the corrosive sauce there to chew on the floor.
Maybe those expensive Weather-Tech custom molded floor mats aren't such a bad idea. 
DrBoost wrote: I submit this,It has current plates. I bet it's fast with all that weight reduction going on.
The wife bought a new white 1986 Pontiac Grand Am SE - this looks to be of the same era.
Our's started rusting right after the FOURTH Chicago winter we owned it and I chased the rust until I gave up and sanded it down and painted the rusty areas with a can of white rustoleum that didn't match but I didn't care any more.
That Grand Am reminds me of the Sentra that I used to have.
After seeing a couple 3-4 year old Altimas with carpet hanging out of the passenger footwell, I realized that Nissan apparently does not care about rust protection.
(The funny bit? I sold that car for more than I had into it including maintenance items. The guy who bought it didn't even road test it, just loaded it on the trailer. Said he was going to "grind the rust down and repaint it." I would have told him that if he ground the rust down, he'd have nothing left but tires and interior plastic, but I wanted the car to go away.)
RealMiniDriver wrote: I have a theory to floorboards rusting through. They don't rust from the outside in, they rust from the inside out. Usually, the driver's side is worse than the passenger. You get in, with sloppy, salty, wet boots. They drip off, onto the carpet, soaking through and keeping the corrosive sauce there to chew on the floor. Maybe those expensive Weather-Tech custom molded floor mats aren't such a bad idea.
That's the deal. MG's etc leaked, the pad under the carpet would get wet and the floors would rot from the inside out. That's why you see so many with undercoating serving as the floor pan.
I wish that I had pics of the floor boards and cab mounts on my Dastun 620 durring its last year. Its amazing that it stayed attached to the frame. It ran great right up to the bitter end though.
Clearly, none of you have ever owned a 1960's vintage Jeep.
There's plenty of car left in many of those pictures. 
Trans_Maro wrote: Clearly, none of you have ever owned a 1960's vintage Jeep. There's plenty of car left in many of those pictures.
I've owned enough Jeeps to know the meaning of rust. When you see a hole in a frame and say "oh, it ain't that bad yet. See, I can't even get a whole hand through it yet" and think that's a good thing.
His words are true!!
No more plastic bed liner for me.
Datsun310Guy wrote: Our's started rusting right after the FOURTH Chicago winter we owned it and I chased the rust until I gave up and sanded it down and painted the rusty areas with a can of white rustoleum that didn't match but I didn't care any more.
the 03-07ish era rams are doing the same thing up here. i parked next to a 2007 at the home depot the other day with 4" of bed missing above the rear wheels
SkinnyG wrote: No more plastic bed liner for me.
Why not? That's the only part of the truck that survived 
I'd never to a drop-in bedliner either.
SkinnyG wrote: No more plastic bed liner for me.
That's why I use simple, cheap, easily removable rubber mats.
SkinnyG wrote: No more plastic bed liner for me.
You've got it all wrong man. See, the plastic bedliner becomes a structural member on rusty trucks. I remember scrapping a 84 Chevy my dad had when I was a kid, I remember he got rid of it when the door rotted out in a way you couldn't open it from the outside without risking ripping the handle off. We pulled the bedliner out to find a ) shaped bed under it, turns out the supports underneath had went out and the bed surface wasn't far behind. The corrogated plastic held the mess together well enough that it hauled a lot of wood without anybody noticing a problem.
My students and I were in the midst of short-boxing a square body Chevy. I knew the rust was under there, but had planned on dicing up as much of the box as I needed to, and re-weld it into a shortbox. We ended up finding a short box box for the same price as a set of wheel arches, so this one went to the scrappy.
How about this one?
This is from my Dakota. The skeletal remains on the top was what was on the truck when I bought it. The front wasn't much better. I scored both front and rear bumpers at the boneyard for under $100 last year, painted them up, and slapped them on. That junkyard score is rare, because 99% of Dakotas and Rams up here in the Northeast have rusty bumpers. It had a rubber mat in the bed and a cap since new, so no bed floor rust.
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