Question : Frame repair...

[z24cavaliercaleb]

yeah so i've been installing my motor and had my car in the air.. and i noticed that my frame is rotting away... right now i have a hole about 2'6" long and i was wondering if anyone has done this repair and if so how they did it... 1991 z24 cavalier...

[robertisaar]

holy shit 2 foot 6 inches long?

does a cavalier even have that much floorpan?

jokes aside, a picture would help as a hole that big, it will depend on exactly where. you may be looking at some major surgery though.

[z24cavaliercaleb]

Well its just where the it has the body pinch on the bottom its 2'6" and bout 1 1/2-2" wide... i though like angle iron and cut all that out and burn in 1/8th inch angle iron to the seam be more stable and fix the hole but im not sure how others have done this... pink is where its messed up..

[z24cavaliercaleb]

other then where its marked in pink its completely solid. guessing previous owner never cleaned the salt from underneath the car.. rest of the car is solid.. other then drivers rear fender well has quite a bit of rust... but I'm just going to cut that piece from my parts car.. its solid but the Rocker/ sub-frame area is junk on both cars..

[GTP091]

my car is rust free but I've known guys with uni-body cars with that problem but not as large. Problem with a sunbird my friend had was that when the hole was opened to do the repair the rust was even worse on the other side and there wasn't enough meat to patch it. he ended up having to cut a larger piece out and welding in new metal. he didn't have a parts car to cut the exact piece out so used a thick piece of sheet metal. Had to take the carpet out of the car and watch closely so no fires started up. The car cratered about 8 mths later though. Spray some rust check in there now to stop the spread ASAP.

[montess408]

i would use 18 or 16 gage metal and make a teplate and cut out the olds stuff and weld in a patch