I've had my car for about 7 years now. The first year it was my DD. The last 6 I've put about 500 miles between wrenching on it, losing interest, kids, wrenching, and losing interest again. Another reason is unless it's a sunny dry day i dont drive it due to rust.
This looks bad. But then again i dont know anything about body work, rust, and the likes. Here's a few shots. This is the rear passengar rear wheel well. Also it's rusted through under the passenger side door. You won't see it unless you crawl under it. It's about a size of a softball. The rear hatch is also rusting.
Anybody with shop or personal experiences that can give me ideas of what it's going to cost me to restore this? Overall the rest of the car is decent to good as far as a 16 year old car can get.

I really want to fix this and winterize the undercarriage. I just hope it's not going to cost me an arm and leg.





The rest of the car

If you do it yourself, rust repair doesn't necessarily have be expensive. However it is extremely time consuming, and trust me there is always more hidden under those side skirts. I strongly suggest finding a cheap donor car (if you can) to cut out metal. Rust repair is simply a matter of cutting out all of the rust and welding in a patch panel. There are dozens of different techniques including butt welds and lap joints, all with varying longevity of the repair and amount of body filler that is required to make it look smooth. Make sure that your patch panels are as close to a perfect fit as possible to ensure a strong and water tight weld. Before you weld on the panel I recommend using por15 or at least weld through primer in the hole and on the back of the patch panel. When you weld in the panel start with tack welds, each across the panel from each other to minimize warping. Then slowly fill in the gaps between tack welds with beads, giving time between each pass for the panel to cool. Once you are confident that the weld is water tight, you can grind it down and spread a layer of body filler over it. I like to start with a layer of kitty hair, and then use a layer of glaze over it. After that just primer and repaint. I'm not going to lie and say it is easy, but at least you get the satisfaction of knowing that you are saving another good dsm from the junkyard. Good luck!!

That looks worse then mine.

It is fixable. I don't think it will be cheap if you paid for someone else to repair it. You won't know how bad it is, till you start opening it up. I had ~1" holes in the same area as yours, and ended up replacing 2 feet of rot. Inner/outer rockers all the way up to the verticle seam under the door.

There was a low point just inside the trailing arm rubber cap on mine, that was full of dirt/sand/salt/water...etc... which leaks in between the layers of steel and helps spread the rust.

Making the new outer rocker panel isn't too difficult. I think I used 18ga steel, and just took a hammer to it till it matched the curvature of the outer rocker section. Since the 2GB's don't have skirts, you can add them and the repairs are completely hidden. I added 2GA twist skirts, and you can't tell the car has been repaired.

I have some pictures in my profile/build thread page of rust repairs like this. My hatch has similar rust I still need to tackle. Check your front strut towers aswell.

i've already anticipated more rust lies beneath all that.

PK i looked at your thread and i wouldn't even know where to start. I have no garage space and no tools for that type of work. but who knows maybe i'll spend another 6 years trying to fix this rust.

thanks for the input guys.

As far as the hatch, I would just junk an get another. I'm sure that you can find a good one that is rust free for not too much money. I'm in the same boat as you...mine is rusting in the same places. I was told that a brand new genuine Mitsu 1999 hatch only costs about $250.00 ish. Needless to say that's just a hatch only and you would need to transfer all of your parts to it and get it painted. For the rest, I'm also wondering the same as you.

The Hatch could be the easiest part to do. You could do a CF hatch swap or just stock replacement. You don't have the talon twisty skirts so hidden surprises there. The next easiest would be suspension parts just replace them...however its AWD. the pic before the hatch and after the trailing arm, is that under the chassis? As for the rear passenger trailing arm area, I haven't seen any repairs in that area.

Yep that's right underneath the pass. side. It can only be seen from underneath the vehicle.

That part could be the next to hard replacement its just 2 sheets of frame down there, it does look like the carpet floor is visible and no rust. id just find any wrecked TSi or Gst and go to town on it with a power saw.

Just a few tip that I have for body work. These are assuming you don't have the financial ability to get a donor car or have trouble finding one in decent condition. One would be to cut and shape your own sheet metal. Make sure you get all the rust out and that everything is within a 3/16" tolerance. If you use more then 3/16"of bondo you risk it cracking in the future from multiple hot to cold cycles, aka the seasons. If its over 3/16" you will need to hammer it closer or use a fiberglass patch. If you don't know how to weld and or shape sheet metal or don't care to then the body patches can be done with only fiberglass. If they aren't within 3/16 then keep layering on the fiberglass. Remember not to layer it too high as you will need bondo on any fiberglass to make it smooth. You can actually make anything you want out of fiberglass by buying clay and making molds with the clay. Then once you get everything fixed make sure you change all of your weather stripping or it will just happen again. Try not to remove or modify any of the undercarriage as that allows the water to venerable spots.

Shoot, that thin looks fine. I would rock it all day, everyday. Much nicer then the toyota in the background

my 1997 gst is REALLY Bad and here in CT, They wanted 1500 to fix the rust SMH ;-;