Frame rust ..... help!

[muleskinner]

Buy an Arizona car and swap over all the good parts.

I would have gone that route to begin with, but I'm in Ohio. The cost to buy one down there and shipping it to me would be to much for my pocket book. Plus the time I don't have. Forget it.

Cost me $200 for the work on the Festiva and it looks great. He said he treated it so it will not rust again. The other 3 corners are good also.

[Bert]

The way you guys talk corvettes , fieros and saturns would rust out back there.

Indeed they do rust out. These cars still have metal frames to which the plastic and fiberglass are attached. You retain a false sense of invincibility when the body panels don't corrode, that is until they become unattached and start to fall off! My ex wife's car was a nearly new Saturn (this was back in 1995) and the dealer even told me the warrantee would be void if I oil-spayed the car. I didn't listen and 20 years later it is one of the very few SL2s still on the road in Ottawa.

[Bert]

He has cleaned all the metal by removing the rusted areas. He also reinforced the area by adding metal bars inside.
He has repaired tractors, trucks, and farm equipment in the past with no long going problems. So I trust his work.
Thanks for the caution.

I welder buddy of mine routinely does frame and body repairs (MIG welding) like this (floors most often times) but finding good metal to weld to is often a problem. You are correct in that most auto shops will not touch things like this, not because they can't but because they cannot guarantee the structural integrity of the end product. The repair of yours has merely been sprayed with asphalt undercoating after. This stuff is cosmetic and in no way addresses whatever prompted the rust in the first place. There is water/salt seepage into that area that started long before the rust perforated to the surface. Can you soak the insides of all those channels with oil?

[muleskinner]

Can you soak the insides of all those channels with oil?

I'll ask him (the welder) what he did to the inside channels.

I'll look around the area and up to the front to see if there is ways to spray oil in the channels.

[Bert]

I'll ask him (the welder) what he did to the inside channels.
I'll look around the area and up to the front to see if there is ways to spray oil in the channels.

Most rattle cans of preservative oil spray such as Krown and RustChek (WD40 will work except that it evaporates over time) have a plastic applicator straw attachment for the nozzle. This stuff seeps into seams and joints like nobody's business and does not run off nor dry out. In a pinch you can drill a tiny hole (1/8") at a convenient location and shift the wand around inside while you are spraying.
I reside in a rust belt likely worse than yours but I've kept my vehicles alive (my 86 F150 is completely intact, and the nuts and bolts are not even frozen) by faithfully spraying them every fall and touching up visible areas anytime I get under the car. A simple zap of this stuff inside the doors via application through the drip/vent holes at the bottom will preserve the seams for a long time. My Festys were mostly 10 years old when I bought them so they are not perfect but I do drive them in the winter and none of the rust has ever gotten worse.