I’ve had 5 project cars and the worst was a Mazda. Rust ate the support channels from the inside so bad that it looked fine but couldn’t keep the wheels straight.
My most recent project is an old truck and it’s great. So. Much. Metal. Even if there’s rust you can easily cut it out and weld it up.
it looked fine but couldn’t keep the wheels straight
Damn, that’s pretty advanced rust. What happened to the Mazda?
I think I got lucky, it seems that there’s enough material left to patch up the frame and weld a new spring mount on. The car is pretty solid otherwise but discovering this was not exactly a good feeling after driving it at 180 km/h on the Autobahn just the week before.
Alignment shop was on their 3rd attempt before they figured out the issue. You could press a screw driver against it and it would feel fine, but a good strike would go right through.
Engine only had 50k and the interior and body panels looked great. All new brakes and other items. It became a donor for a different car that some guy was restoring.
Yeah that’s some odd rust, looks like sold metal around it. I’d be concerned about that area and keeping things in the right spot. Good luck!
Thank you, though I think I’ll leave this one to the professionals. My guess is that a crack formed along the side of the mount and the previous owner just welded a piece on top. You can kind of see the spots in a few places. There was zero thought put into conserving the metal below, so it just kept rusting from the inside.
I’ve had 5 project cars and the worst was a Mazda. Rust ate the support channels from the inside so bad that it looked fine but couldn’t keep the wheels straight.
My most recent project is an old truck and it’s great. So. Much. Metal. Even if there’s rust you can easily cut it out and weld it up.
Damn, that’s pretty advanced rust. What happened to the Mazda?
I think I got lucky, it seems that there’s enough material left to patch up the frame and weld a new spring mount on. The car is pretty solid otherwise but discovering this was not exactly a good feeling after driving it at 180 km/h on the Autobahn just the week before.
Alignment shop was on their 3rd attempt before they figured out the issue. You could press a screw driver against it and it would feel fine, but a good strike would go right through.
Engine only had 50k and the interior and body panels looked great. All new brakes and other items. It became a donor for a different car that some guy was restoring.
Yeah that’s some odd rust, looks like sold metal around it. I’d be concerned about that area and keeping things in the right spot. Good luck!
Thank you, though I think I’ll leave this one to the professionals. My guess is that a crack formed along the side of the mount and the previous owner just welded a piece on top. You can kind of see the spots in a few places. There was zero thought put into conserving the metal below, so it just kept rusting from the inside.