Reviving my 87 GN after Hurricane Sandy!

[atamagashock]

My car stays at my parents house in Ocean City, NJ because I don't have a garage at my house. Anyway when the hurricane hit, it brought over 2 ft of water into the garage where both my 87 GN( I've owned for 13 years and has 25,000 miles) and my dads 86 GN( bought new in 86 and was show car quality) sleep at night. My biggest problem is that my car had been sitting for a few years and I had taken the insurance off the car. So I'm now responsible for everything out of pocket. My goal is to try and work on it every weekend, so I started working on it yesterday. I took out the front and rear seats, console, and carpet and padding. The pad was still wet. The drain plug had been pulled out right after the storm to drain the water, but that's it. Next weekend I'm going to wire brush the floor pan and coat with a rust inhibitor. I was thinking about spraying the pans with rhino liner or the likes of. I'm curious what others suggest I use to seal them up, if suggesting that I don't use the rubber spray?!

 

[TRICKSIXPA]

The best thing to do is get some POR 15 for the floor it's a pain to work with. It wasn't so bad when I did my floor pans. I first took my 4" grinder with a round cup wire brush and hit all the rust spots. If you follow the instructions for POR 15 and do your prep work this will be the last time you will ever have to do this for the life of the car.

 

[TurboDave]

Problem with Salt water corrosion is that it can never be stopped. Especially in spot weld seams that you can't get at, and under that floor pan cross brace that runs under the front seats that you can't get under. It will relentlessly continue to get worse, and any, ANY wiring touched by salt water needs to be completely replaced.

 

[Chuck Leeper]

I'm w/ Dave ^^^^
A "resurrection" of a car hit w/ salt is pretty much an exercise in futility.
You will spend much coin, & get rust back...NOT what I'd call a good trade off.
And, if you do get it back on the road, and attempt to insure it????

 

[atamagashock]

let me clarify this guys, cause you guys are invisioning this to be much worse than it actually is. first off, my parents house is closer to the bay. so the ocean water is not the water that entered the garage. it was the bay that had came up and flooded their area. the water is probably 60/40 salt/fresh. the water was only up for a few hours before the tide went out and the flood water receded. there were no signs of water in the console or glove box, even though the water line on the sheetrock and body of the cars was high enough for it to have been. im guessing the water that came into the car was only an inch or two deep. so while i have concerns about things, im not worried ongoing issues will occur from this. also as far as getting he car insured, i will have no problem at all, because there is no way for the insurance company to know that anything ever happened to the car in the first place.

 

[Phoneguy]

I'm w/ Dave ^^^^
A "resurrection" of a car hit w/ salt is pretty much an exercise in futility.
You will spend much coin, & get rust back...NOT what I'd call a good trade off.
And, if you do get it back on the road, and attempt to insure it????

Mike, the painter at Richard Clarks, is rebuilding the GNX that was in the hurricane...said it will cost north of 90k to fix it...
It was on a rotisserie at the shop during the nationals...completely gutted !!

Bryan

 

[atamagashock]

Mike, the painter at Richard Clarks, is rebuilding the GNX that was in the hurricane...said it will cost north of 90k to fix it...
It was on a rotisserie at the shop during the nationals...completely gutted !!

Bryan

yeah i saw the picture of that GNX...my car was nothing remotely close to what happened to that GNX.

my car actually has a coating of oil on the entire under carriage from oil that was on the water surface. 7 moths after the storm and my car has no more surface rust on the frame than it did before hand

 

[counterman]

Just clean it up like you are doing, and you will be fine. I live in coastal Louisiana, and this is a frequent issue here. Lots of scrubbing with soap and fresh water. If no wiring damage exists, you are ok. Probably not as bad for the car as, say, a Northern winter's salt exposure from snow. Plenty of cars out there have been cleaned up after storms around here. Strip the pad from the carpet, and pressure wash the carpet if you want to reuse it, or just get another rug.

 

[Buhog]

Rhino lining is good sound insulator but also traps any impurities and would actually promote rusting. Osphpo is a rust converter, easy to use gets into all areas with a brush or pump sprayer. POR is good for rust and actually only sticks to rust so if your pans aren't scale rust its pretty much useless except lightening up your wallet. Hope this helps!

 

[atamagashock]

So far I have the whole interior out of the car. Tossed the carpet and jute pad. Gotta scrub the pan and then determine what's best to coat it

 

[RUDE DOG]

Theres nothing wrong with those floor pans the pictures make it look worse than it really is. An angle grinder with a wire brush attachment will clean those pans quick, then finally seal it all up with a quality sealer or just paint it. Gbodyparts and maybe some other vendors have the carpet with the rubber backing along wih the padding witch makes a good sound deadener.

 

[atamagashock]

Theres nothing wrong with those floor pans the pictures make it look worse than it really is. An angle grinder with a wire brush attachment will clean those pans quick, then finally seal it all up with a quality sealer or just paint it. Gbodyparts and maybe some other vendors have the carpet with the rubber backing along wih the padding witch makes a good sound deadener.

My dad ordered me the carpet for my birthday/fathers day gift. Got it from GBody and it has the jute pad like it did from the factory. I'm hoping to have time this weekend to get down there and get the pan cleaned up and ready for paint. Carpet will hopefully come this week,as its been about 2 weeks already. Everything else that we ordered came in 2 days after the order was placed. Not sure why the carpet is taking so long, but I guess it doesn't matter till I have the pans cleaned and painted!

 

[TRICKSIXPA]

Just having did my carpet. Since the weather is nice. When you get it take it out of the box and let it sit out in the sun to warm up. The hotter the better. Your probably waiting for the carpet to come in from ACC. Most vendors use this company. 4" grinder with the wire brushes work great I got the set of brushes from sears in a kit. Took care of the rust in no time.

 

[atamagashock]

Yeah the carpets are ACC from Gbody, so I'm assuming they are coming direct from acc. As for cleaning the pans, my plan was to use a wire wheel on my grinder, so it sounds like we are on these page. As for installing the carpet, my dads first trade 38 years ago was carpet, so I'm all set in that department! We actually are carpeting the upstairs of a house today and doing hardwood downstairs. Anyway when it's cold in the winter we always crank the heat and roll the carpet out so it softens up so it stretches better