Am trying to tackle this as far as I can take it myself. Am finding the rust went beyond the sill and went through the next box like frame and also did a job on the rear pillar base. It was so bad that I am wondering if the sheet metal lower than the sill panel is also ~.039 inches thick too? I also have no clue as to what sort of hole pattern there is on the next sheet metal beyond the Saturn replacement sill panel. Anyone have pictures of all this? Going to have to rebuild the frame/pillar. Oh boy............. Does any auto parts store carry POR 15, or equivalent?
So far, I've taken the auto's worst side rocker panel skin and plastic brace behind that off and had to drill out the rivets holding that in place. I have been poking, literally, through the rust which was way worse than I thought. The inner door sill sheet metal rusted away at the back end pillar area at the bottom near the box-frame as well as the welded top part of the box-frame beneath the door sill sheet metal. I have a real nasty job ahead of me here. I got the short repair panels from Saturn for both sides and obviously those are not really long enough for my situation, at least on this one side. I'll have to have two pieces made, one for the box-frame top, and a piece to rebuild the rear pillar like part of the door sill sheet metal, then get a welder to get that together. Going to get some 18 gauge steel bent up ahead of time. Tomorrow, I'm going to trace the new panel onto the part to be cut out and then see how far I have to go as far as building up the rusted frame itself. The other side is seemingly not as bad but haven't got that far yet.
Wish I could get POR 15 (rust treatment) somehow locally but guess you have to order it. The two vertical sides plus the very bottom of that box-frame( and bottom of car) seem to be in great shape. Hope I can rebuild this and get it all as rust treated as possible. I want this auto to last awhile. Saturn's body shop estimate/quoted $800 to fix this. Wonder how far they would have dug into this and just what they would have actually done to repair it. They'd probably do it right, I hope.
Well, tomorrow I'll be grinding away! Will keep you posted.
This is why I blast the rocker panels inside and out at least once a year at the car wash. The car is a 92'... There's really no reason in going all out on fixing this. Not sure how bad the rust is but I say knock the loose rust off, hit it with denatured alcohol and then slap some POR15 on it and forget it. JMHO
I intend to not have to do this again for sometime. Being in the snow/rust belt, I'm going to make the effort to get new sheet metal where it disappeared, and it was all of 'that bad' and then some. Then I'm going to try and protect it all with POR 15. And yes, I'll be paying much more attention to these areas from now on. Just hoping the weather will stay a bit warm for awhile longer.
I posted on this problem with my '94 Sl2 and '02 SC2. Because of design, water collects under the rocker panel covers and rusts the metal underneath. My pet peeves, water leaks and rust, ug. Rocker panels must be dried with a chamois after every rain and wash. Glad they fixed this on the ION.
I used something called "Great Stuff", its a rust killer/converter. Very caustic but deadly to rust. I think thats the name , comes ina liquid, sold in Auto parts stores.
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