Lee & Tracy Grimes wrote: > > Check put the condition of the floorboards for rust, especially from the > front jacking point along the rocker over to the torsion bar tube that holds > the whole car up. From my experience, this is the worst rust risk area on > first gens. to a point they can be repaired but some are structurally > beyond hope even if the rest of it doesnn't look bad.
Any stressed areas are vulnerable. This includes rocker panel seatbelt anchors, door hinge areas, sheetmetal near rear trailing arm bushings plus what Lee mentioned in the front floorpan corners. Also try to look at the seams between the fenders and the wheelwells, since water likes to accumulate where they join on the inside of the car, well hidden unless you remove some plastic hatch area pieces. Check for windshield moulding gaps, since water seeps down into them and will, if I remember correctly, end up in some combination of dripping around the footwell area and leaking into the rocker panels. Once water gets into the rocker panels for long enough, eventually it rots out the holes at the rocker panel bases for the plastic screws used to hold on the rocker panel plastic cladding. An excellent test for rust in my experience, one that may spoil the car owner's day, is rapping on the rocker panel covers / claddings. If it's been in a rust-prone area for much of its life a whole bunch of reddish-brown rust/debris will fall to the pavement and the plastic cladding will show how rotted those mounting holes are by how loose its base is. If the floorpan's been patched with welded-on metal panels, watch very, very carefully for some combination of original floorpan receding away from the patch's weld seams and extra (possibly recent) undercoating seeming to cover contours that don't seem quite right. If you get a chance to pull the carpet at all in the front corners of the interior and over the sheetmetal directly behind the seats, do it. If possible, put your hand under the carpet especially in those areas and rap on the metal while checking for contours indicating metal patches. The problem with welded-on metal patches in my experience is that the heat of the welding plus any suspension-related local stresses makes the original floorpan sheetmetal along the welds extra rust-prone, causing inevitable rusting away of the floorpan at the patch weld seams. The patch and its welds may likely be in perfect condition, but actually touching original floorpan along only one or two of its four sides. ... > Lee > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Nicholas Crego" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Crx-Post" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 4:40 PM > Subject: CRX: 85 Si > > > I'm going to look at an 85 Si later tonight (possibly tomorrow) for my > > winter car, since my 88 Si has been in storage for a couple of weeks, > > and I'm sick of driving a big truck. Are there any things in particular > > that I need to look for on it? The body looks solid, and the interior > > isn't bad at all. > > > > ------------------------------------------- > > Nicholas Crego > > Yellow Y-49 88 CRX Si > > 1966 C-150F 8046S > > Single and Multi Engine Instrument Pilot, Certificated Flight Instructor BTW, my own '85 Si had a minivan aggressively bounced into its rear by a pickup driver who wasn't paying attention in Harrisburg-area afternoon traffic. The passenger side rear subframe was crushed just before the (destroyed) bumper mount, and the passenger side rear quarter panel is buckled out. Since it's been appraised as "totaled", despite being fully drivable (16 gauge bailing wire holds up one side of the bumper in two places though), I get to pay out-of-pocket to have the frame/unibody pulled on Monday since I don't have collision on my basic insurance coverage. At least it's an independent bodyshop guy who's doing it (who also prefers driving flyweight cars) so I won't be paying insane amounts for it. The driver's seat is reclined an extra maybe 5 degrees. It seems improbable, but it seems like it's less from seat mechanism warpage than upwards pulling of the floorpan's front (esp. outside) seat mounts and some downwards movement of the rear seat mounts. It was hit hard enough for the ashtray to slide out to its stop. My neck was only a little sore for awhile, and I got only a minor neck bruise from the seatbelt keeping me from flopping into the steering wheel on rebound I guess you could call it. If that minivan hadn't been between the pickup and me, well, I'm not even going to think about that. Roger Twitchell York, PA badly wounded Baltic Blue '85 Si, still drives like an athletic puppy, albeit one with lots of new creaks
