Hello All,
So my 96 ls has been my daily since high school. I have owned her for 10 years and my only major mechanical problem in that time has been a water pump. She has never left me stranded and always started (unless the battery had died, lol). I could not have asked for a better first car. The time has come for a minor overhaul. With over 208,000 miles on the clock she is need of some attention. First order of business was to get some grime out of the engine bay. It's always nice when things are somewhat clean before you work on them
Step 2 was to get her off the ground and see if there were any major issues with the under body. Everything checked out until I got to the rear passenger corner. I thought maybe it wasn't so bad until I got the screwdriver out. My heart sunk when I saw light on the other side ...
I need some opinions on what I can and cannot do. I really don't want to let go of the car, but this is something that could compromise the strength of the frame. Thanks for the input!

 

Wow kind of ate that all the way thru.
But I have seen this before and it can be repaired. Clean the area grind it down. Then fill the open area with Metal in the center. Make it the same Gauge as the Frame.
Then you also reinforce the area with an overlay and extend it beyond the patch with a similar gauge material.
This should probably be done at professional metal shop.
Body shop maybe able to take care of it. The metal will need to be bent to shape so it fits with out a gap. Then you will need to clean it and coat it with a rust proof coating.
Probably some serious salt from the road in a snowy area caused the rust to happen and sometimes it is difficult to keep clean unless you can Garage the car.
Hope that helps, and I hope you get a few more reply's.

 

If you love the car that much, buy yourself a welder, and cut out the rust, and weld in new metal. It will take some time, and a bit of a learning curve, but you will have some pride in knowing you did it yourself. h

 

Thanks for the replies. Work has kept me busy the last couple of weeks so I haven't been able to do anything yet. I am really not sure where to start.... I need to find out where the good metal starts and go from there. I'll try to get some more pictures up soon!

 

Another vote on just cutting the rusted part and welding in new metal. With this DIY project, you can save a few bucks instead of going to a body shop.

 

You've owned it for 10 years and no problems but a water pump. You got your money's worth.
Don't mess it up now.

Don't waste your time, your energy, or your hard earned money on a 20 year old, 200k mile, rusting car.

I'm in Ohio, and on a quiet night, we can hear the cars rusting away!

My vote,....Let it go.

 

Mine is a '95 and I prefer to bike/walk/run everywhere, so I drive once a year to visit family.

I wired together ultracapacitors en lieu of a battery because batteries just don't last with my (non)driving habits.
There was a phantom load coming from somewhere so the caps wouldn't be able to hold onto a good charge even when hooked up to a solar panel.

So the issues creeped up over time, the first being the lack of A/C. It was guessed there was a leak, but I didn't bother doing anything about it since I didn't drive much.
Next were the brake lines. I was about to do the family visit when the brakes felt like mush. I was driving by an autoshop so they "fixed" it.
2-3 years later, brake issues again. I took it somewhere else, but couldn't even drive it there because the brakes when straight to the floor and fluid just poured out. That was fixed.
Next, I wanted to replace my grinding A/C compressor with a bypass, but in the midst of pulling back the wheel flaps, I cracked the coolant line. It just plain crumbled. That was a costly fix.
And now, finally, the transmission line. I actually took it back because I thought the coolant was still leaking. Before my visit, the reservoir level was almost bone dry and I saw evidence of "something" leaking underneath (tried putting 2&2 together).
They just pressure-tested it and no problems, but that's when they found the transmission line had regular dripping going on.

Except for the A/C, it was all related to rust (who knows, maybe the A/C too).
At this point, I've put in a fair bit and figured with everything being replaced, it was like a new car, but I came up with a good question; "How much life do you think she has in her?" I was thinking at least 5 years which would be stressful enough for me, but when he said maybe 1 year, my heart sunk. He said the rust in the undercarriage was a lot.

Being a '95, she's only got ~70k miles on her and even that was mostly from when she was owned by my parents. I didn't add much to it.
But it looks to be pretty much the end of the road for her and I'm guessing the only route is scrap. I'll hold on to her to the very end until she is unable to take me where I need to go.

I'm pretty sure I'll just go car-less after she's done, but I'm exploring all options. I figure renting a car for several days when visiting family will be cheaper than the insurance and registration fee.

Are there thoughts regarding end-of-life actions? Do you think "Iowa driver's license types and fees - Iowa Motor Vehicle Division" (disposal url) is a typically good resource to have/follow?
Would you take it to a metal-recycler? The authorized recycling list looks to consist of auto-shops.
When I put in a new bypass pulley, serpentine belt, had the coolant line and brake lines done, I'd think that would increase the value, but I'm not sure a recycler is even going to look at those and take them into consideration. Would I be better off dismantling stuff myself, or what round-about value do you think I ought to anticipate coming from "selling" (recycle) off the car?

 

If that's on the cradle, that whole thing can be replaced

 

I had to look up what you were referring to.
I assume "that" was in reference to rust since that's what the whole thread is about, but I wasn't sure about "cradle". Searching mainly comes up with phone mounts, but I'm going to assume it also refers to the undercarriage.

If that is all true, then yes, Seems like everything underneath has (or had been) caked in rust. But not just underneath, inside as well.
That coolant pipe was behind the wheel splash-guard and I was shown the dripping transmission pipe from inside the hood.
The costs just seem to keep climbing and I think it may be best to just use my car as-is until the very end and then move on to just using rentals.

I figure when an auto-shop says they think the car has maybe 1 year of life left, that seems to say a lot about the rust condition. I can only hope I may be able to recoup the costs of the repairs.
When I'm told replacing that transmission line would cost $230, but maybe add on another $350 "if it's in the radiator"(?), I can only imagine what replacing the entire sub-frame would be (which would be yet another immense cost).

 

Yes, I was referring to the rust. At an auto shop, this will run you more than you can get another Monte for. The engine & tranny needs to come out and then removing the cradle/swapping it out for another... That's a lot of labor... Sorry for the bad news.

But that price for the transmission line is outrageous IMO... but then again, I've replaced mine and just about everything else in the engine bay.

Best of luck.