I had asked before about help with decoding a cowl tag...and I greatly appreciate all of the suggestions and info you came up with...I finally saw the car in person Saturday... It has a few problems which any car of this age would...but I'm curious to know if there are any potential problems or problematic areas that I should check.

I looked at the front end of the frame and it didnt show much wear or damage from what I could see. (the inner fenders had been taken out)

THe trunk deck had some rust between the rear glass and the trunk itself...is this on the side of cosmetic or signs of something serious?

The inside of the trunk itself looks like it had been replaced, and the edges of it looked solid. I tried to look at the underside of the car, but since it was in a garage I couldnt see too much. The wheel wells on the back seemed solid.

Ideally I would like to buy this car and use it as a daily driver and slowly work on it until it is a modernized street cruizer... I may ask about reasonable prices in a later post, but it wouldnt help to get a few ideas now...

PLEASE give me your advice and let me hear some of your experiences.....


Thanks,
CustomChevyGuy

GM A bodies are notorious for leaking real windows - that is why the trunk was replaced I bet - if they did not fix the rear window problems, this could continue to rot the trunk too. If it were a northern car, there'd be a ton of places to find rust...

THe trunk deck had some rust between the rear glass and the trunk itself...is this on the side of cosmetic or signs of something serious? Common problem. replacement panels are carried by all the suppliers. Cost was around 100$ last time I checked.

Here are the places I found rust on my car, that I could have found if I had looked but I didn't, after I had already inspected and purchased it. Some of this I didn't find until I had the car stipped down.

1. Behind the front fenders just back from where they meet the door. This areas is only seen with the front fender off. But front the underside you may be able to feel some of it. and I found this area to be about 2x as bad as area #2 below.
2. Behind the front of the doors (same general area just split by a pinch weld from the area listed above).
3. At the bottom of the doors (not the skin bottom the actual door bottom)
4. Behind the rear bumper. This can't be seen with the bumper on, maybe the trunk gives a clue to its condition?
5. On the inside of the front A pillar at the bottom
6. Behind the areas of #1 and #2, I didn't see this until I cut out #1 and #2 to patch it. It could be seen if you where on your back looking at the area and reached your hand up and over the frame to feel for it. Shows how bad #1 and #2 had gotten, but it was eaten from the inside so on the outside it only looked like a few pin holes.
7. In the pinch weld under the trim around the rear (convertibles only)
8. Below headlights on the grill support
9. The back of the quarters, the bottom rear section that runs next to the trunk. Its hard to describe.
10. floor braces
11. Just over the pinch weld that connects the rear seat floors to the seat back.
12. dash support just behind the A pillar

Now here are the places I had rust I did know about
1. Top of the wheel arch on the front fenders
2. Bottom of the quarters and around the wheel well
3. bottom of the door skins
4. trunk
5. floors front and rear
6. On the rockers

As you can see my list of unknown is much bigger and harder stuff to fix than my list of know. This is because I didn't get my butt dirty and run my hands over every inch of the car before I bought it. I would buy it again, so thats ok, but I would have known better what I was in for. Get IN the trunk and feel where you can't see. Take a flash light. Get under the car and scoot around and feel up and under what you can't see. Get up under the dash and look around. I wish I had, not that it would have stopped me from getting my rust bucket, but at least I would have know 2 years for a frame off was probably unreasonable for a time frame from the beginning.

hmott speaks the truth. I to didn't look every where when I bought mine. But when you get it home and you have all the time in the world to snoop around, the surprises start showing up. The area mentioned behind lower front fender near door, if you layed down and looked under car at that area there is a slot which is btween the rocker panel and the body, if you look up there with a flash light you may see something that will scare you, rust in color. Mine was in that area on the lower cowl and body, holes big enough to stick three fingers thru..In fact its still there. Being repaired in a couple of weeks.
If this car has plastic inner fenders, you take about 4 or so bolts out that hold it on down low, pull the lower area of the inner fender forward and look back there towards door with a flash light, you may yell if its a rust color or you may say COOL !!!! No rust..