How to Repair Rust in the Frame of Your Corvette

blogged by car on July 8, 2009 7:48 am »

The first thing you need to look at; is how bad is the rust, does your frame have a big huge gaping hole in it, or is it just a little rust on the surface making it look ugly, surface rust is as simple as taking your air grinder to it and grinding the rust off of the surface.

However this is not a license to be stupid; don’t bare in to the frame with your grinder, take it very easily and take small amounts at a time, you don’t want to weaken the frame as you try to take off the surface rust; or you will be cutting it out and patching it.

OK now that we have discussed the easy stuff, it’s time to bare down and get to the hard stuff, I of course won’t be able to cover everything in this one article, you’ll have to look for the next one to finish you learning, but I will get as much as possible in this one.

The most obvious thing is to closely inspect your frame; make sure if it needs to be patched before you go cutting in to it, you’ll hear some people say that you should just go look for another frame rather then cutting and patching your frame.

This statement could not be less true; unless your frame is beyond repair you absolutely should use it, it is very herd to locate another frame to replace yours with that will be in better condition, you should make every effort to fix the frame that you have.

Since you corvette’s body is made from fiber glass your frame is very important to your safety and you should make sure that it’s done right; put the time in to repairing that is required, do not take short cuts to save time, or money it would be very stupid.

Now we’ll get to the nitty gritty here, you’ll need to make sure that you have access to a air die grinder to cut the rust out of the frame, you should never use a torch to do this, if you have a plasma cutter you can use that, a plasma won’t weaken your frame.

The reason you should never use a torch is very simple, as the torch heats the metal until it’s glowing red, or molting which ever you prefer, it weakens the metal that in the glowing area, and a die grinder will not do this, nor a plasma cutter.

You will also need a welder preferably 220 volt mig welder that has enough balls to weld the frame of your corvette, to smooth out the weld you’ll need a electric, or an air grinder which ever you prefer to use, I would say that the welder needs to do about 60 amps.

Corvette Frame Rust Repair
Now we’ll locate the rusted area and cut it out, using your plasma cutter, or your die grinder either one is fine, you’ll want to cut about two inches out from the affected area, after you have located; and cut out the affected area you need to gauge it.

You must replace the metal that your cutting out with the exact same gauge of metal; take a sample to the place that you plan to purchase the replacement metal from and let them gauge it for you; don’t get exactly as mach as you think you need, get more them you need.

If the affected area includes an angle you’ll also need to get the angle bent back in to the metal; since you probably don’t own a metal break that’s capable of bending frame steel you’ll need a shop to do this also; but make sure that you measure the angle right.

Frame steel is not horribly expensive, this is why I say get extra, get twice, or three times as much as you need so in case you make a mistake, and you probably will the first time around so be ready for it; it’s up to you to do the job right.

I’ve been in the automotive business for about 20 or 25 years, I have worked in all facets of the industry, from parts to restoration, all different makes and models, I just want to keep people interested in the old cars because it’s where my heart is.

http://autorevival.com

David_Atkin