I Was Reading About Some Of You Guys Having Rust Problems On You'r Under Bodys Of You'r Cougars .from What I Understand The 86-88 Tbird And Cougar Have One Sided Galvinized Steel In Certain Parts Of The Car If You Have A Original Brochure It Tells Of What Body Parts Are Treated .plus I Also Have A 1940 Pontiac And I Was Advised Not To Undercoat This Because Once Rust Starts It Is Like A Cancer And Goes Straight Through .so I Was Told To Use Just Rustolium Paint And I Have Had My 1940 Since 1992 And So Far So Good. I Have Had 2 Thunderbirds A 1983 And 1987 And 4 Cougars 3 88's One I Bought New And I Did Have It Rust Proofed When It Was New These Were Ls And I Just Purchased A 1987 Xr7 And On This Car The Passenger Side Rear Quarter And Under The Passenger Side Door Was Ate Out My Orginally Purchased Cougar I Bought In 88 The Lower Part Of My Doors Started To Get Surface Rust And It Was Treated New So I Was Dissapointed It Didn't Hold Up .so I Cleaned It With A Wire Brush And Used Rust Stop And I Poored Rustolium Inside The Door So It Was So Thick And I Never Had Problems Again But On My Other 88 I Bought Used It Was Burgandy Metallic Clearcoate And The Doors And Body Were Perfect No Rust And It Was Ten Yrs When I Bought It. The 87 Xr7 I Just Got The Car Was An Original Owner And I Was Suprised Of The Rust On It .perhaps The Passengers Side Was Not Treated Right Because This Is The Only Rust That Has Ate Through That Severly. My New Cougar I Bought In 88 Was Oxford White And The 87 Is Also Oxford White And For Some Reason I Guess It Was Not Clear Coated. To Protect The Body Clear Coated Paint Seems To Hold Out The Rust Best. Anyone Else Seem To Agree??? :) :)
The door bottoms are definately the biggest rust spot on these cars
Sam's site shows many of the other spots:http://www.foxthundercats.com/samscars.htm
look under tech info.........buying a fox car
I bought my 88 new never had it rustproofed. I have had a bit of surface rust in spots mostly due to stone chips taking the paint away. I just primed and pained, no more problems. My driver door bottom did rust, but Ford fixed it under the rust thru warranty.........no problems since.
i wish the woman i bought my 83 cougar knew of a door rust warrenty (if it applied to that model, because she had it undercoated by the dealership when she bought it new, and the ONLY rust on the car is on the bottom of the doors (especially in the corners)...... is that because of faulty window stripping?
por15 works wonders, i just ordered the engine kit from them, i'll probley get more too.
Im glad i dont live in a salty/wet place.
Undercoating is evil, once you get a little speck of rust underneath it it takes off like wildfire. My 80 succombed to this illness but my 82 is spotless underneath because it doesnt have undercoating.
Of the four 80-82 t-birds i've owned two have had undercoating and two havnt, two were rust buckets and two werent, guess which is which there.
undercoating is evil
i got the kit today, just to show you what it comes with, their is actualy alot more than the picture shows. $45 for all this, enough to do an engine + some. they also have dauber kits that are wool pads on a wire handle that you can fish into hard to reach areas. if this goes as well as i hope, i will be repairing all the rust on all my cars with this stuff. EXPECIALY the insides of my doors.