My goodness, yes I'm figuring out all too well the rust issues on these cars. This car sat for over twenty years out in the open in Southern California, subject to all the elements for that time. There is much surface rust, and a few holes, more than a few. I want to replace all my doors completely. But the worst of it is, the drainage track on the roof line for the rear hatch has mostly rusted through. Several small holes all the way across it and the hatch itself is rusted through to. It completely destroyed the headliner and the spare tire compartment cover. I don't doubt if my luggage racks leak too. It is so severe, that I'm embarrassed to post pics of it, but I will at some point. Thankfully, I've been able to keep the car in storage and finally give it a break from all the weathering. The damage is repairable, of course most likely at a pretty penny. The best will be to have new sheet metal welded in and that usually costs a bit and I'm not looking forward too the "why bother" conversation with the body guy. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to this being my first body work project. I plan on putting in some of my own elbow grease. It is the reason I bought this car in the first place.
Here are some pics of the grille when I was repairing it. It was so dried out from sitting 20 years, that it broke in three pieces just removing it from the car. I cut the screen sections out with a hacksaw, then I glued the pieces back together with plastic epoxy and sanded it with 80 and 320 grit sand paper. Used some aftermarket grille mesh from Pep boys that was an absolute nightmare to cut and bend. It was not designed to bend at all and the threads of the grille material kept coming loose and it would fall apart. I'm still finding pieces of it. Anyways, in hind sight I would have used the old school aluminum grille mesh. That would have been far more manageable. Not to mention I probably went through 7 cans of paint. 5 black metallic and 2 chrome, for the turn signal bezels. It took allot of work and patience to put it together satisfactory and it still really looks messed up. I would replace it in an instant with a clean stock one. It at least makes the car presentable for the time being.
This is the original grille, now it sort of has a rat rod look. It keeps breaking though, it cracked again and I would definitely replace it. I'd like to do a matte black on the car eventually.