Ditto to all posts saying they love to do serious rust repair! While I’m doing it, I’m complaining, but seriously, there is something majorly therapeutic about reconstructing a tinworm addled car and making it whole again. After a while, it does get kind of repetitive. Oh yeah, another spare tire well… more rockers… of course! This is New York! But that’s probably why I live here, to be a masochistic car welder Frankenstein’s monster repair guy. Then my eyes can go all Gene Wilder crazy after I’ve finished welding another floor pan and say “It’s ALIVE!” I’ve never lived outside the salt belt, so rust free cars are just not a reality with me and my nonexistent budget. So I’d agree with most posters on this thread that your ‘69 looks to be a VERY nice driver that could, with mild effort, be nearly perfect IF YOU WANT IT TO BE! I’m a driver #3 condition kinda guy like my grandfather. He didn’t care what the patina of his car/truck was as long as it ran and drove perfectly. He bought/sold/operated heavy equipment and also owned a Kaiser/Frazer dealership so he was definitely mechanically inclined! But, like most others on this thread have already said, that determination is yours alone. Most of the parts for my project ‘60 V-200 are from my friend from high school’s ‘71 Swinger. 8.75”rear end and springs, the built 225 slanty. Yes, I’m keeping the pushbutton trans. I loved that Swinger. Old lady light green metallic with black top and matching green interior with a green cactus rubber thingie on the antenna. My friend kept on modifying it until it lost its mojo (he had tubbed the rear for racing slicks and jacked the *** up way high with those SS springs since he was dragging it on weekends) so he cut it up saying it had too much rust and moved on to a Chevy square body. I kinda lost touch with him after that. Thought it was a big mistake, but he happily sold me the Swinger’s important parts for my Valiant that someday, I’ll have back on the road. But that’s my journey, and this is yours. I totally understand frustrated rants too. We tend to say a lot we don’t mean when we’re angry. I will inject my $.02 on KBS or POR coatings on rust like your car has. Don’t do it! If all traces of salt and corrosive elements haven’t been completely neutralized before application, these non porous coatings will just trap that right where it’s eating the car and one day, plop! Off pops a chunk of your trunk! I’ve since moved on to oil based paints like Rustoleum for car floors. They’ve held up the best for me in salty western New York winter use. I KBS coated a Jeep Cherokee of mine after doing a thorough undercarriage refresh back in 2014. New rockers, lots of replacement floor sections and unibody frame rail repairs. I used the rust neutralizer, but it clearly didn’t penetrate deeply enough to truly neutralize the salt and rust. The coating flaked off the first winter back in service. By 2019 the gas tank straps fell off from a rusty rear K support (rear shock support mount and floor support rail on the Jeep XJ, not like our ever important K frame on the A bodies!) and there were holes popping up all over the frame from trapped rust. I was done. 231,000 miles and it was “just” a ‘98 XJ, so she’s pushin up daisys now helped on by ineffective KBS. Again, user error may have a lot to do with this, but I’m no dummy, and my observations are that you basically have to completely flush the frame of all traces of salt (good luck with that… ten wet/dry cycles with a pressure washer, sand blasting, and STILL the salt could be somewhere hiding inside the rail… as it clearly was.) if you want this to be effective. But if that was MY ‘69 Dart, yes, I’d weld repair those easy areas, paint the inside and outside of the trunk and enjoy such a solid car. But you probably just discovered this unpleasant condition and were like HUH?! I didn’t bargain for THAT! That’s it, I’m sellin this rust bucket! Then you come back to it a few days later and apologize and say you didn’t mean it. I’ve been there! Enjoy the ride!
