I decided while I was waiting on the new radiator to pull off my vinyl roof and see how bad the rust is. There are holes in the front lip and the back lip. The rest of the roof is pitted but solid. The back is by far the worst part. Do you think this rust is repairable?
It's intresting that my car has the same top and the rust that was under it is in the exact same locations, although not as bad. I don't know what the correct repair is for this but I glassed mine since a top is going back on..
Not trying to vere off topic too much.. Have you been here? http://sachserodshop.com/ I have gone there several times. Nice toys around there. Those guys might have good recomendations also..
My plan is to repair it, paint it and put a top back on too. I live about 1/2 mile from there. I graduated high school with Mike who is the owner. He's a good guy for sure. I might have to pay him a visit and see what they think. Here's a look at the roof after all the scraping. I did find a good adhesive remover during this process. It's called Krud Kutter. Squirt it on and use a Scotch Brite pad then scrape.
Nice Comet! The second set of pics looks a lot more hopeful than the first close-ups you showed. Those game me the impression that the whole roof was like that. Good to see that it is more localized. I looked at some of your other pics. You have a really nice car with some concentrated rust issues (like my own). Good job on the floors. Looks like you used the same approach I did (peel-n-seal and bubble insulation). Wanted to hear how you are liking that and the difference it made. With the rust issue on the driver side floor, I could believe that it would be the roof that caused it ... are you sure your cowl is OK?
I found on my own car that what you see if most often not all that there is - I would remove paint to bare metal back from the rust until you find the solid clean metal - the problem then becomes do you wire wheel all of the rust out, so whatever you coat it with then stick, because you then have to expect what is seen now to get much worse and you might have to weld in new metal - hard to make the call
after you remove the windshield seal there may be issues with the window channel... it is a fixer ...
Yes, you definitely will want to grind the paint back to solid metal. Keep in mind that visible rust is only a portion of what is actually there. I want to add that with all the compound folds in that area, that rather than patch it with another piece of metal from the outside, only to have more rust lurking underneath, It may be better to use a clean slice from another car grafted in ... inside and outside sheetmetal and bracing etc. The only real way to tell is to chop out the outer layer rust and get a better look at what is underneath. This would mean new headliner, windshield out of the car, etc. to give you a better idea of the scope of this. I fully understand that with such a clean car, there is a real temptation to try to do this the least invasive way possible ... that isn't always the best way, though.
Is the car repairable? Yes....of course it is. ANY rust is repairable with enough money. What I would recommend: I would replace the entire roof. Only 4 seams to repair versus trying to patch and piece it all together. It would be cheaper and faster in my opinion to replace the entire roof.
Fixable but it would take a lot of work. Welding and metal fabrication. I would lean toward replacing to roof, but I'm guessing you're not ready to paint the car. I'd strip all the rust and have someone TIG weld in the areas that need replacing. You could make most of the patches with a metal break and a shrinker/stretcher but it would probably be easier to find a donor roof to cut the areas to be used to patch. The plus is the bodywork doesn't have to be perfect since it is a vinyl top car.
