'71 2800CS 2205743 Refurbish/Restore

[Jeff Smith]

I started the exploration on 22 June 2026. Below are the photos of the major rust areas that need attention. Started sanding away the paint and bondo to uncover the truth. I have an endoscope on order, so more to come. I know the structure in both front fenders needs rebuilding, so I'm planning on removing fenders. Not sure about the side members yet.

 

[ScottAndrews]

Looks like a lot of earlier repairs, many of which are now rusting anew, from the inside.

How deep are you planning to go, and are you doing the body work yourself, or are you gong to have it done?

Left rear side rail photo shows the rocker rotted through the forward edge of the rear wheel well (which is the aft end of the rocker assembly). That probably means that the rocker cover is also rotted there.

The rocker has three parts. The inner rocker is the rounded sill that the carpet goes over inside the cabin. Inside that is a thick steel beam (what I call the "zig zag beam" because of its strengthening indentations), and then outboard of that is the outer rocker cover. There is also a removable trim piece that goes over all of this, but that is not part of the body structure.

The outer cover is covered up by the lower aft edge of the front fender, and the portion of the quarter panel froward of the rear wheel well. The outer rocker cover is only accessible from outside at the door (after moving all the sill trim). It dives under the fender at the front of the door, and under the quarter panel at the back of the door. At the A and B pillars, there is yet another structure that is welded to the center beam of the rocker, so in those areas the rocker has five layers...

To access this you need to cut the lower edges of the fender and quarter panel, and drill out the spot welds along the lower sill. W-N sells patch panels for these parts. Probably will need to replace the outer rocker (Also W-N), and if you are unlucky, then the lower end of the B-Pillar itself will also be rotted, and maybe the A-pillar. All of these are available at W-N, but welding them in is a job and a half.

Most cars end up with rot at the back because the Roundel vent on the C-Pillar drains into that area. If you have a sunroof, then you probably also have rot at the B-Pilllar area of the same panel, because the sunroof also drains into the rocker there (stupid approach...).

There are some good pics of this here:

Post in thread '72 3.0 CS 2240344 Restoration'

Jan 12, 2026

some pics that maybe of assistance to make sense of the brown lump you might be looking at. Your approach will be different as i took my car apart to almost every loose panel. but the pics show the approach of welding clean steel, and then painting after all welding is done.

Here's also a suggestion to reinforce the jack pick up point:

In this pic you can see that i partially painted the inner sill piece, keeping the area clean for (spot) welding.

with EuroPax weldprimer:

also on the sill side:

...

• eriknetherlands

• 

Driver side floor looks like it needs a total replacement (Panels available from W-N and also Mike Pelly). Your inboard passenger side floor is almost certainly rotted out too. Your driver floor looks a lot like mine, and my passenger floor was worse (the heat from the exhaust really accelerates the rust process). .