2G Is this salvageable?

[pabafree95]

Hello - i am the original owner 1995 eclispe GST 5 spd, 110,000. recently shop told me to get the rust addressed. ive reached out to a few people and will be getting it assessed.
I had the front crossmember replaced in 2016 along with repairing all subframe mounting points. I plan to get the car up in a few weeks with a mechanic friend ( 4-post lift) and inspect closer.
any tips on how to priortize addressing this is appreciated though I know it can be challenging based on pics alone. If point of no return, in spite of the history i've had with this car, i can let it go... I think! thank for any input. main thing is safety for myself, my kid, and others around. I drive this < 500 mi annually. never raced / tracked.

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[BLACK'98DSM]

I bet @jesse12345 could give some insight.

 

[pabafree95]

I bet @jesse12345 could give some insight.

cool look forward to getting his take. here is the outside didnt want to start with that. doesnt matter at this point, just wanted to show her off.

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[jesse12345]

It looks like alot of the structural part of the car isn't fully gone. Most of what I see looks like the rockers which are the first to rust along with strut towers. I know when they get to be this rusty I try not to lift by the pinch rails. I have a car that's about as rusty as this and it's definitely not the end but it for sure is a process to repair. If it was my car personally I'd try to save it.

 

[pabafree95]

Hey Jesse - thank you so much for taking a look for me! I know you’re very experienced. I’ve seen several of your posts. So that’s giving me a glimmer of a hope. I was able to track down a Mitsubishi car enthusiast not too far from where I live he’ll take a formal look at it. top end restoration Gainesville Va this is my first car I got when I was 21 all my money I saved up at that time. Somehow my wife is letting me hang onto this even though she doesn’t like it but the kids think it’s cool!

 

[Vladimir]

If you are doing all the welding and fabrication yourself it would make sense to fix her and get most of the structural integrity back. That is if you got plenty of free time to do it. Here in the Midwest most of all 20 year old car starting to look like that, especially Nissan, Toyota, Ford and Chevy and people run them till subframes fall out.

If you don't weld or have a friend that can weld and help and you come to a body shop to do it it will be very expensive to do it properly. I'm sure replacement panels are hard to get and a lot of fab work is needed. Cheap shops would just find areas where metal is not that rotten near those holes and throw some sheet metal patches over them welding them in place. They are not gonna cut out all the rotten parts, clean out and prevent all the rust from spreading. Just a hack job, that will look ok, will probably run you over a thousand now a days. To do it properly I can even imagine, probably 20+ hours labor +material+ shop expenses

 

[pabafree95]

Got it that’s very useful information. Thank you so much really appreciate it.

I’ve never had a car this long. Never mind the rust . Is this the kind of thing where you take one turn hard and the car just falls apart? Understandably I’ve been slightly paranoid driving this and have only been doing very limited use until I get it checked out properly.

 

[Vladimir]

When your doors suddenly go out of alignment, your steering wheel develops a little death wobble, and your suspension starts feeling like your grandma's air mattress, that would be a good time to call give her a last hug and pull her heart out. Of course all the brake/fuel lines and exhaust by that time would be in million pieces. I hate salt

 

[pabafree95]

Ha ha got it . I guess I would have at least 60 seconds and pull over thanks man. I hope you guys have a great weekend.

 

[tschuhly]

At the very least someone just posted a really nice shell in the classifieds. You could just use that and swap everything over into that.

 

[miliman13]

Others have already confirmed it but this is 100% repairable this looks nearly exact to my rust that I just recently completed restoring (on my build journal )

One side would crunch when lifted by car lift, from the absence of support from all the rust.

Hope you just get her repaired, it would be unfortunately to get rid of her for something so simple and small.

Sand blasting is the best way to handle this.

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[pabafree95]

Others have already confirmed it but this is 100% repairable this looks nearly exact to my rust that I just recently completed restoring (on my build journal )

One side would crunch when lifted by car lift, from the absence of support from all the rust.

Hope you just get her repaired, it would be unfortunately to get rid of her for something so simple and small.

Sand blasting is the best way to handle this.

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Hey, thank you so much for taking the time to reply and go to the pictures. Glad to hear there’s some help. I assume that if this was past the point of no return people in this form will let me know.

You know I clicked on your journal post but I couldn’t get into it. Is there a hyperlink I’d be curious to see what you did if you don’t mind sharing.

 

[miliman13]

You know I clicked on your journal post but I couldn’t get into it. Is there a hyperlink I’d be curious to see what you did if you don’t mind sharing.

Np

Street Build - Red5.

A nice replacement for something most, if not all, of us have removed.

www.dsmtuners.com

 

[chrysler kid]

I’ve seen people save much worse, but yes your mechanic is right to say it needs to be repaired now before it gets worse.

It’s not that it’s unsafe right now, or that it’s going to fall apart if you slam on the brakes, it’s that next year the rot might get to a point where there is no usable metal to feasibly weld the metal repair to for structure.

It is still drivable and savable, but next year is a different story

 

[pabafree95]

I’ve seen people save much worse, but yes your mechanic is right to say it needs to be repaired now before it gets worse.

It’s not that it’s unsafe right now, or that it’s going to fall apart if you slam on the brakes, it’s that next year the rot might get to a point where there is no usable metal to feasibly weld the metal repair to for structure.

It is still drivable and savable, but next year is a different story

Thank you for taking the time to reply with your experience much appreciated to you and the others!