While I was trying to figure out where all of the water was coming in from on the 86 740 (turns out the bottom of the drain was pinched off and probably flooding over in to the air intake) I found some pretty serious rust issues. I knew about the rust around the battery tray but never noticed the hole in the subframe or the hole in the footwell/fender. The car has 486K on it but runs great and I'm not really ready to scrap it yet, how bad do these spots look and is it worth repairing at this age and mileage.

Right now my biggest concern is the roadworthiness of the car with the hole in the subframe so close to the radius rod attachment point. FWIW the drivers side is fine.



Front of the wheel well and under the battery tray.


The hole in the wheel/foot well is worse than it looks, I poked around with a screwdriver and was pushing up on the carpet, although it's not very big in size.

Keep Kelly
Needs Me.


wat?



fwiw I've driven worse

Its common. Most people don't know it exists though. It is usually hidden under that layer of undercoating. When we do safties we always give that area a tap with a ball peen hammer. Doesn't take much for them to go through. I always wonder what sort of % of the 7s on the road have this, but the owners don't know because of the under coating

Jordan

That's exactly what I found, I didn't know enough to look there specifically so never really noticed until I picked at it with a screwdriver and a big hunk of the undercoating fell off and there was the hole!

It's pretty bad...it is possible to repair, but your going to have to get some serious welding done on that one.

Any recommendations in town? I have used Dwight's Place in Lethbridge and Kustom here in town over the years. Everyone seems to rave on about Kustom's "custom" work but I have found their day to day stuff only so/so where Dwight's work has always been first rate.

Get ready for the price to repair it.

yup, cheaper to buy another car.

Any ball park numbers while I put the wipers and cowl back together?? I wasn't thinking it would be cheap but was hoping it wouldn't be enough to sink the car.

I would bank on at least 5 g's unless you have a really good friend & alot of beer.