Introducing the Demon Rust

The bane to every classic car, the Demon Rust. Slowly eating away at our treasured past. Sure accidents can bend and buckle our cars, but nothing evokes quite the emotion of seeing a car rusting away to nothingness.

Aside from the floorboards, the major rust areas are as follows:

Driver side rocker panel
With one completely rusted through hole, the entire rocker panel needs to be replaced. What I am figuring is that eather the PO restoration ignored the bad areas on this car, or they developed after restoration. This car has been sitting somewhere for a long time, allowing Rust to build up in unprotected places.

Lower front of Driver Side rear quarter panel
Not too bad yet (need to get under the paint) but can easily be hidden. Hopefully, it will need only minor addition of new metal and the seam to the wheel-well is healthy.

Weld line on Driver Side rear quarter pannel
Obvious rust, though the weld line appears structurally sound. Hopefully just needs TLC and cleanup as I am unsure if putting new metal is a viable option here.

Battery box
I believe that pretty much every spit I've seen (ok I'll admit, that's about 3 cars) have a problem here. The Rust doesn't seem to be active, so this might have been arrested development from the PO restoration. I plan to either make a Stainless Steel pan to insert from above (complicated), or to mount from the interior and attach to the battery box from below (Simple).

Passenger side rocker panel
Though lacking holes, this side is the worst as far as obvious rust goes. This is slated for new metal too.

Lower front of Passenger Side rear quarter panel
Bad. It will need addition of new metal and the seam to the wheel-well is unhealthy. The integrity at the wheel-well is pretty much shot. Don't really know what I will have to do here.

Well that's the worst of the rust, though this demon is ever present, awaiting to devour our treasured past.


While removing the front instrument panel, I caused another hole in the driver side rocker panel as shown below. I know I will have to replace but I am concerned about body warping when this repair is done, the doors are a pretty good fit now. Hopefully I can keep it that way.