Alright so maybe this isnt a 4th gen, or a maxima... lol but I wanted advice on taking care of this rust and I'm sure any method mentioned could be just as usefull on a maxima as it would be on an RX7. I actually have an I35 and I'm part this board I am just posting pics of my problem on all boards I'm part of including rx7club.com to get a diverse background of opinions.

The rust I am concerned about is the rust along the ridge used with the factory jack along the rocker panels. Its not a flat surface like the floorboards where I can clean the area by grinding off the rust and clean the surface easily. Its an uneven surface hard to hit with a grinder and a wire brush isnt enough to really clean it up. So I'm guessing I have to cut it off an weld a new peice on but I have never done something like that..

I figure I am already going to need to get a mig welder and learn how to use it to fix the small holes in the floorboards which I'm not was worried about as the guage steel used is prety thin stuff and welding something in place and grinding the welds flat is pretty basic.

Lookin for some ideas here. I figure I am going to have to use some POR-15 rust paint in certain areas to address areas I cant get to.

BTW Whats the best way to get that rubberized undercoat off the bottom of the car quickly. It looks like I am going to be needing to remove a lot of it to check how bad that rust is on the frame rails and a couple other areas

 

Well rust is rust, doesn't matter which car it is, so any opinions here should help Maxima owners also. One thing I know about rust is that it's insidious and getting rid of it totally requires a lot of work. I'm sure you know all of this already. My concern is that after doing all of the grunt work, you may see rust starting up again a few months later. That's why I got this device:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/category_landing.jsp

I got my Max painted a few months ago, and they did a crappy job on the little rust around the wheel well. Soon after I noticed a bubble coming up, at the same time the above device was advertised. I installed it...guess what? The bubble actually stopped expanding! I'm keeping an eye on the rest of the car, but this partcular device was tested by our gov & passed. You may want to try it.

 

Unibody rust, rockers are shot.
Ditch that car quickly, it's rotting away in all the wrong places.

 

Well it is a track car. Its going to be completly gutted and I'm throwing a corvette engine in it so I dont care if it looks like crap I dont even really care about repairing the rust thats already occured I just want to stop the rust or slow it down alot so I can enjoy the car for the next 5 years or so. After I'm done with it the car's not going to be worth anything anyway.. so I dont really care about resale.

 

If it is track only you will need the stregth of the unibody to be AT LEAST at stock level if not more reinforced. Whether you want to replace portions of the unibody could get into a pretty involving process.

I think you need to think about your costs/benifits from THIS point forward only. If you are going all out, you want to do it right. Plenty of chassis' can be had for not much money that are not in that state.

 

I watched a friend spend heaps of money getting ris of rust like that. 2 years later he was back at it again.

 

You may want to think about whether the car will pass scrutineering for track work?

 

Yeah deff true. I dont think I'll spend big money on this chassis on mods I cant remove and put on another car like a custom roll cage which I plan to do one day, but I think if I do get a welder (which I am pretty much absoulty sure I'm going to do) I am going to make myself a set of kick a$$ custom sub frame connectors because they take less engineering than say a cage and whole lot less material. I think when I want a paint job and a cage I'll move to another shell thats rust free and while everything is stripped off the car already get the shell painted and get a cage installed which should save me money and then transfer parts over to the new shell from the rusted one.

As long as the chassis can be kept together stongly with SFCs than I'm not too worried about it. The real kicker about this car is the body is beutifull its really a nice lookin car for its age and the only areas with rust are under the car. I really just want it to last 5 years tops and I'll be happy

 

if the car is going to stay in Cape Cod, there's a good chance it might not last 5 years. Good luck with the car, even though I know I wouldn't feel safe driving the **** out of something with rust in all the worng places

 

My advice is patch it up as best as possible, undercoat it with rubberized stuff & then use the electronic rust control I talked about in the earlier post. Car will def last you 5yrs.