Hi everyone, a big thanks to everyone on this forum, as I just found it today (wish i found it a bit sooner), but all the faq’s and stuff are quite helpfull for a newbie as myself.
I just recently bought a 1990 fastback, in absolutely beautiful condition inside and out, but overlooked a big part in the front. I went to get the car certified, and the front rad support frame piece is almost totally rotted away! Ouch! So of course the mechanic said the car was worth 5 bucks, and laughed on what I paid for it. Hee Hee, funny…but not so funny for me, obviously. I did pay 2000 for this car, and its uncertifiable.
The mechanic at the shop thinks the car is junk, but i’m sure myself…(i hope) that a front rad support piece can be sourced and hopefully welded on?
I’m unsure on the structure of the s13, and not sure if it is worth fixing or not. The rest of the car is solid besides this front “rad support” frame piece and would hate to have to scrap this car.
Does anyone know where I can go to get this fixed without being shafted?
or what this kind of repair entails? I hope its not as bad as the mechanic thinks it is. Well all I can do is pray for now, and hope I can be driving a 240sx shortly!
Any help will be absolutely and greatly appreciated!
An intro in the “New Members” section might be a good start.
If you overlooked something as simple as the rad support, you probably missed the holes in the floor or the rotted frame. You better look it over with a fine-toothed comb before you decide what to do.
Ouch… I feel your pain man, that’s pretty harsh. I don’t know if the mechanic is lying to you or not, but I’d definitely get a second opinion off a friend that knows cars. Not just from posting on a forum. Get someone to see it with their own eyes.
As to rust buckets… yea man, cars tend to do be like that sometimes. If you look to the left, you’ll see a picture of a ST162 (bonus points if you know what that is :D) and that car looked to be soooo mint when I bought it, and turned out to have rust everywhere. Even the outside which appeared mint, started cracking and I could see the body filler that was used all over the place.
My advice right now… If you can’t fix it, part it out. You can try selling it too, but you don’t wanna screw someone like you got screwed, right?
Then on the next car, demand emission & certified, look around the engine bay (A LOT!), look at the underbody (A LOT!) and play around with a magnet in the trouble spots listed in the FAQ. I don’t know them off the top of my head, but fenders near the wheels are a popular one, so is down low on the car near the doors, both sides. And the hatch… oh god does the hatch ever rust! But only on 240’s, cause of the retarded factory spoiler, the hatch on my ST162 is one of the ONLY parts that isn’t rusted
you can get it off a parts car and weld it on.
rad supports are also a piece which is swapped if your going from the S13 to an S13.5 conversion, with the S15 front end. Try going to another place where they certify and try and see if they say the same thing.
Some chassis rot is acceptable, some of it makes it a “walk away” situation.
A rad support? Not a big deal at all … wreckyard. Depending on where you live, there’s a free part day coming up at Standard (I think this weekend lol I should check).
Also, if you can get pictures of the support, would help too. Mechanics for some reason always seem to be bitter “throw that hunk away” people.
Usually becasue none of them know how to fix things.
Anyway, it’s entirely possible that you could get away with grinding down the rust and just welding some plate steel in. But seeing as how you say it’s almost gone, I’ll take your word.
If it’s the only rot on the car, do not junk it by any means. It’s actually a common place to go bad. Rocks, stones, all kinds of crap get thrown up under the car. Then you have coolant always there, salt gets jammed up under there … no surprise.
Not that uncommon of a problem, the mechanic is a dumbass if he said its junk, if the rest of it is solid jsut cut one off a junker and weld her on. People replace em all the time.
