"Rust Free"

[bangn]

So something I hear and see quite a bit..."My E30 is rust free"

And every time I hear it I die a little bit inside.. Not that there aren't Rust free examples out there but that basically apply's to cars like the ones kept at BMW Germany for display.

The purpose of this thread is to open some eyes.

At the beginning of the week an e30 came up for sale that I intended on buying to fix up another E30.. The owner of this car told me it was rust free and in the whole car it had a small hole in the rear tub.. And on the surface that's all there was.. but the whole rust free thing is a load of shit with these cars..

So I got the car home, took off what I wanted and decided to get digging to see how rust free this car was. Car looked ok on the surface.. like any other E30 on the market waiting for a lover of E30's to turn it into their pride and joy... This car is good for the bin.



Floor is basically gone on the drivers side


Inside wiper chamber.. if you want to see how rust free an E30 is.. start looking through the wiper chamber


Fender - that Fender looked fine on the outside.. I literally pushed my finger through the paint and found all that behind it.


+
Firewall is eaten through behind the rubber insulation
Rear tubs are rotted
One wheel arch below the rear door is full of cancer
the mounts on the rear doors for the triangle window are rotting
Inside the front doors below the mirrors have rust coming out the seams
Whole A pillar for the door mounts is gone from dirt sitting behind that fender.

and before people get on the band wagon of "its a series 1, series 2's don'
t rust"

This is a series 2








Hopefully this might help people in buying the right car and not going by the sellers word that its rust free.. I've had a few people buy parts off me the last couple of days and have also told me their cars are rust free. I showed them the rust free car I just purchased and now they are going hunting... So thought it might be useful for others.

But please stop this "my car is rust free".. its a 30 year old car at the end of the day.

[Pudmunkie]

Glad to see this. I had the same thing happen... Rust free southern car.

Pull the carpet, fenders, and insulation before making that statement.

Everywhere you mentioned should be checked ideally from inside out.

If lucky you Will only need to contend with one or two. Preferably floor board and rear wheel wells

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Been there and replaced all that. I did it to my self though. I bought it think the rust i saw was the only rusty. 500 man hours and thousands of dollars later and now she is rust free.

[flyboyx]

Sucks man. Hope you didn't pay much for it. Fortunately, most of them are 100x better down here.

[kronus]

the rule of thumb is that the rust you can see is 10% of all the rust

[rturbo 930]

Been there and done that with both my Datsuns. Neither were advertised as being totally rust free, but they both had much more rust than suggested. My E30 was advertised as being rust free, and honestly it pretty much is. One or two very minor spots that need touching up (think sandpaper and paint), but otherwise, absolutely no rust. Haven't even touched the PB Blaster.

[mrsleeve]

If you think e30's are bad trying finding "minimally" rusty landcruiser's lol, My brother is looking for a fj60 project thats fubared other than minimal rust. He's in southern AZ, and fwiw can see the A/F boneyard from his house, and looked at one that was a Tuscon truck since new in 1989 and it had bit of hard to find rot.

My fzj80 being a NE rig all its all its life has a little bit here and there in all the common places but not bad at all. I inspected it very carefully and didnt find any glaring structural or holes in the body. Until I got it home and started running 20-150 miles at a time in the back country and the cargo area getting a lot of dust infiltration. Well it took some doing but you can only see the hole in the pass rear inner fender from one angle that you can get 3 fingers in, going to have to weld in a patch to fix it.

[stonea]

the rule of thumb is that the rust you can see is 10% of all the rust

qft

[bangn]

Been there and replaced all that. I did it to my self though. I bought it think the rust i saw was the only rusty. 500 man hours and thousands of dollars later and now she is rust free.

Ditto.. I spent about 8 months getting the rust out of the firewall, rear tub and roof... I will never buy another sunroof car knowing what happens to them.. It just not worth the headache.



Yeh those 40/60 series cruisers LOVE rust. Thankfully the panels are like 1.5mm thick.. even the 80 Series is getting like that around the gutters and windows.

Ive been lucky enough to be able to get a good look over 20 odd E30's in the last few years and the trends seem to be the same.

-Look in the rear tubs/arches
-Shine a torch down the wiper chamber and see if the elephant trunk is full of mud
- Look at the sunroof mount brackets and the sunroof frame on the vehicle around the back edge of the opening
- Floor Pan
- Accelerator Pedal base bracket (push the carpet down)
- Around Wiring harness grommet on firewall
- Front wheel arches on the cabin side (where your foot would be)
- Behind the firewall insulation (if you find rust in the wiper chamber then you will usually find rust further south behind that insulation.
- Eng Bay Fuse Box mounting bracket at the base where its welded to the wiper chamber love to rust in that join.
- Bonnet (where the silver brackets bolt to towards the windscreen) which leads to a saggy and uneven bonnet when they break through
- Rad support frame that holds the bonnet hinge assembly.. They rust between these welded points
- Headlamp frames (metal type)
- Lower Tie bar of rad support can rust not very often
- Rear lower valance panel below the ridge (rust inside out)
- Boot lid seal in center of the car closest to the numberplate..Water runs to this point and they eat out lip
- in extreme cases I have seen the whole support for the plastic trim along the top of the boot rot through..
- Look out for any added extra sealant around the front and rear screen rubbers.. any added signals there could be an issue underneath thats causing leaks into the cabin
- Under the Aluminium Exhaust Shield that mounts to the firewall and goes under the car.. They trap moisture and can be a good spot to eat the floor
- Around the Transmission bracket slides on the floor pan.
- Bottoms of the doors
- Bottom of the front fenders

Thats generally the stuff you can see.. there is more places but that should tell you the type of car you have

[Northern]

"Rust Free" is just a way the seller self identifies as a lying fuck. lol.

Be grateful for that.

[PKile]

One other spot to check is behind the fuel vent line cover in the right rear wheel well. I have a 92 vert that spent all its life in California and that vent line cover was full of dried mud and nearly rusted through along with the tube the vent lines pass through.

[bangn]

You are right there ^^ That's a good one to check out! Seen a few people on here with that issue

[Stanley Rockafella]

Yup, had that issue with mine too. The rest of the car was clean as a whistle (very minor surface rust).

Body shop pulled that area apart and fixed it.

[cerrajerosbcn]

This issue is a part of the car charm.

[ForcedFirebird]

I unfortunately got in an accident in with the first e30 I bought. It really was a zero rust car, I bought it back from the insurance and pulled it all apart, so they are out there. I did not garage it until the end of it's ~10yr service to me, and that was only because I had Hagerty's insurance after the paint job and was required.

Surprisingly I am putting a cage in my replacement car now, and even though it's a NY car (I'm in FL where e30's last a good bit if you aren't on the beach). The only rust is the pseudo jack point everyone crushed by the front wheel, a small hole in the battery tray and the sunroof panel.

We have been seeing more and more cars missing floor boards chunks, though. People think they have a "clean" car until I show them their carpet liner through the floor when they're on the lifts.