is it worth keeping at this point?

my 97 miata has the cancer of new england, aka severe rust problems. the exhaust is pretty much gone, the body is starting to bubble around the rear fenders and theres already those nice big holes on the rockers where the typical miata rust is, and looking at the a-arms the other day while i was under the car, it looks like there some serious rust on the joints to the body.... and the rockers are almost gone underneath, but thats hasnt worked its way to a visible point to the bystander yet. but you get the picture. should i keep her and just drive her into the ground, or should i pass my problems off to someone else? thoughts?

This is probably impractical for you, bit what I would do is rust mort the E36 M3 out of it, then spray as much of the underbelly as I could with bed liner, then run it till she drops. The exhaust is something I like to call a "forced upgrade", so go ahead and get something like an FM stainless single exit exhaust system. I'm sure the motor could use some love, so possibly build a track ready turbo motor. Oh, then get some 8k/7k coilovers. And you of course have too much power now for the dinky stock wheels, so some 15x8 6ULs would fit the bill.

See? 100% salvageable!!

Sure! It's worth having as a parts car for your newly acquired rust free Miata with mechanical issues.

See how deep the rust is to the A-arm mounts, that will be your deciding factor. Not fun losing a major suspension part at speed in a Mazda (blew the rear shock mount on my Protege, while it only settled a bit, the BANG and wiggling at 70mph was not fun) Structural rust should be fixed, otherwise park it. Is there enough metal to weld on new mounts, or is the surrounding rust gone, too?

I'm glad I live in the south.

If you were ever feeling the need to build a Locost... everything you need but a nose cone , some steel and welder is disintegrating right there in your driveway.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: If you were ever feeling the need to build a Locost... everything you need but a nose cone , some steel and welder is disintegrating right there in your driveway.

+eleventybillion

The rust-mort and driving it into the ground is an option too. If its heavily modded try buying a cheap one in the south, driving it home, and transferring he good bits.

Then again as a "forced upgrade" the V8 roadster/FM tubular control arms look pretty trick too.

Use this car as a lesson on how to fix rust (the absolute worst auto repair possible). Fix the little issues as they arise (before they become big issues). You'll learn a lot about how cars are put together, and you'll have a car that looks decent to most non-gearheads. While driving this project, save up for a rust-free model. Keep both around, and you'll have a nice car for the summer, and a decent-looking beater for the winter.

yea, i know i can pick up control arms for bout 80 bucks as salvage, which may be the way to go. idk why, but theres no rust on the frame, just the extremities... go figure. but right now im feeling just fix whats needs to be, and try to keep it going till im done with school, cause upgrading to a rust free car isnt really fitting into my E1 salary right now...

Sounds like the best option is drive it until you get your money's worth out of it and can upgrade to something less 'northern'. Get the control arms, make it safe and use 'er up.

Frankly, I'm shocked. I thought rust stopped being an issue after the 1970's. Even my 25-year old Chebby truck is nearly rust free despite having never been garaged a day in its life and having been driven on gravel roads a good part of its life. Only the cab corners are starting to rust, and that's because the door seals leak.

Rust on a late 90's car? Unthinkable!

What do you guys do up there in the frozen north, drive around all day in a caustic soup?

i was up in buffalo last year for work, and was shocked to see less than 5 year old trucks with holes starting to rust through the beds and quarters.

1988RedT2 wrote: Frankly, I'm shocked. I thought rust stopped being an issue after the 1970's. Even my 25-year old Chebby truck is nearly rust free despite having never been garaged a day in its life and having been driven on gravel roads a good part of its life. Only the cab corners are starting to rust, and that's because the door seals leak. Rust on a late 90's car? Unthinkable! What do you guys do up there in the frozen north, drive around all day in a caustic soup?

haha yea pretty much. the old lady before me was driving it year round without proper body maintace

I wouldn't have believed that cars could rust that fast/bad (I live in New Mexico) until I saw the undercarriage of a newer Expedition with East Coast plates--it looked worse than Southwest cars from the 50's... .

Personal experience is that it had gotten worse since Ct started using a brine-type mixture in addition to rock salt.