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[blur2040]

Greets.

I'm the proud owner of a 93 Capri N/A.  I have always wanted to be a car guy and have a car to work on.  Long story short, I ended up choosing a 93 Capri with 65k miles on it.  I've really enjoyed it so far.  I got a pretty good deal on it and I've already had some fun diagnosing issues.  Proudest moment so far, being that I managed to hunt down a bad electrical connection which caused the car to fail to start every now and again.

I thought I had a totally rust free car, but I found a patch of frame rot.  On the passenger side, a little bit behind the front wheel, on the rail, there was a rust spot.  Through the sheet metal that covers the rail and rust on the rail itself.  See image here:



I'm a bit new to this jazz, but my basic understanding of how to tackle this is to clean the rust, seal/neutralize, prime over and keep an eye on it.  As you may be able to tell by the picture, I've been working on just that.

Problem is this:  The rail is behind a piece of sheet metal.  I want to make sure I get all of the rust on the rail, so, I've pulled back a bit of the sheet metal.  However, even after pulling back some of the sheet, i'm still finding more rust at the edges.  (If I put a screwdriver around the edges, I still get dusty crackly rust/scale behind the sheet.)

I realize that perhaps I'm approaching this wrong.  Rather than tear up the sheet metal bit by bit, is there a way to get the sheet metal cover off the rail so I can get at it better in order to clean it up better?  Or anybody have any other ideas?

Thanks!

[WashiestSnake]

Sounds like a nice Capri . I thought i had the lowest mile Capri turns out you beat me by 2k. Id recomend a angle grinder, and a welder to patch a new panel in.

[blur2040]

Thanks for the response.  I think you win.  You have a '91, so less miles per year. 

Thanks for the input.  I bought an angle grinder a few days ago thinking that I just needed a little bit more oomph.  Thus far, I've only used a wire brush on a drill and a dremel sander.   But I thought I'd stop for a reality check before bringing in the big guns.   

[WashiestSnake]

After you cut out the panel make sure to check behind it for rust thats hidden, then will be the time to get rid of as much as possible. I would then primer it and use some under body coat when your done. I've never personally had to do any work like that on my Capri, so bear in mind i may be incorrect on using primer and what not. From what it looks like id for sure get some Primer once your done cleaning it up and smoothing out the welds. I hope Rocket gets on here or someone else who might be more knowledgeable.

[CapriTypeR]

This is a common issue.....I've never attempted a fix myself, but I HAD to comment:

WashiestSnake - My 9-year old daughter owns a N/A Capri with.......42K. I know of several dozen Capris that have less than 60K. They're alot more common than you would think.

--Russ

[WashiestSnake]

Huh intresting, I wonder what causes the amount of low milege Capris? Was it mostly 20 something girls, and guys who had mid-life crises who bought them originally? Sorry for the hijack. The reason mine is so low is because of lack intrest on other owners, and just general sitting for long periods of time.

[Rocketman]

There are a fair number of low mileage Capris out there. Seen a few in the 20 and 30k range.

There was a 94XR2 at the MACG this year, I believe he had under 10k on it.
Some folks don't put miles on them.


Either way, your rot doesn't look bad, mostly blistering and surface rust. I'd clean it and throw POR15 on it and keep an eye on it.
It get concerning when there is no discernible structure left to the framerail.

[Chicken]

Having done extensive cutting on Capris and taking journeys through their rusty places I'll suggest an idea or two. That rust is throughout the unseen areas already. Above that area is a cavity in the sheetmetal body that lets the moisture and rust run wild. If you want to keep it a couple years longer you can go to extensive efforts to seal ALL the holes after the internals have had a long chance to bake out any moisture. That's more trouble than it's worth.

One suggestion; drive it until it fails. Another suggestion; minimize the air and water that gets to the corrosion and drive it until it fails a little bit later.

* Once took out a '92 XR with 23 or 27k ?  An estate was being liquidated by a company that primarily dealt in "Classics". The warehouse was filled with gems! This '92 needed a headliner for the hardtop. Drove great. I think they wanted $3500 to get it out of there.

[blur2040]

I take it that the cavity you're referring to is the one that the rail is in?  Ie:  You expect that if I take the sheet metal cover off that rail I'll find rust all down the rail, correct? 

Does it not stand to reason that if i uncover the rail, knock off the rust, neutralize, prime and probably replace the sheet cover that everything would be hunky dory and the rust would be stopped?

Or are you referring to another unseen cavity?

[Rocketman]

The sheet metal IS the rail.

The strength comes mostly from the rockers. There's 6-7 sheets of metal in there folded in a particular manner. I used to have a picture of the cross-section, from when Russ and I cut up one of his parts cars

[blur2040]

Forgive my confusion.  As I perceive the spot I'm looking at, there is beefier rail inside a casing of thin sheet metal (which is similar to thickness of any other body panel.  I had presumed that there's no real structural damage so long as the beefier rail is there.  Am I mistaken?

[WashiestSnake]

You can see what hes talking about in your rot photo. Its like 6 1gauge pieces of steel all on top of each other. There is no Metal behind that its just a empty cavity. Whats your plan to fix it Blur?

[blur2040]

Well shoot.  Let me first demonstrate my great MS Paint skills with a what I thought Vs. what I'm hearing diagram of the rail:

 

This would mean that all the scale that I'm knocking off is several layers of metal that have totally disintegrated.

What to do?  Now I have no clue.   

[Chicken]

Your Paint image is correct.

Yes there is also unseen cavities. The sheets are shaped and tacked into larger shapes and tacked to other shapes and in the end there is a chassis shape. There are many bends and overlays for structural and from misinterpreted design standards    And btw, I have seen where the welds don't line up well, don't penetrate well nor join well.

I have also seen great looking and driving cars with terminal corrosion. It wouldn't be the best use of energy etc. to try and cure that car you love as if it were going to be around forever. Enjoy it. Keep an eye out for your next Capri. Everyone here can tell you, there will be a next Capri.

A very sloppy and effective quick seal for a car you don't imagine will be cured of it's rust problems is roofing tar. Lots of places you don't want that stuff too.

[chrispoe]

My Capri had frame rot too, but mine was on the driver side.  It initially looked like your pic, but when I used a twisted wire knot wheel on my grinder, it turned into a 3 inch hole.

To stop the rust, I chiseled and ground the rubber undercoating/rust off the outside of the rail. I then used a wire pipe brush that came with a flexible shaft/handle and cut the handle off it so I could put the shaft into my drill.   I feed the pipe brush through the rust hole and used the drill to spin it while I liberally spayed carb cleaner to clean out the inner cavity of the frame rail.

To reseal the rail I used 2 part epoxy paint. To do the inside of the frame rail, I used the same method as I did to clean it, but used a softer nylon bristled sink trap brush on my drill instead to spread the epoxy thoroughly inside the rail. For the outside I applied the epoxy with a good old paint brush.
After each coat, I put the remaining mixed epoxy and brushes in the freezer to keep them from hardening so I could reuse them for the next coat.


I originally planned to just do a quick grind, patch, and paint, but instead turned into my 2013 winter car project.  Each free weekend I had I would chisel the rubber undercoat, grind off any rust I found off, and epoxy one section of the car at a time. The worst/hardest sections to do was each of the rear wheel wells, there was just so much of that $hitty rubber coating everywhere.