I'm starting on the rust repairs on the 1998 xjr jag that I did the head gasket, valve seals and timing set on.
Here's what I'm dealing with. Any advice welcome. Just don't tell me to push it into a lake lol

 

This may sound defeatist (and by no means do I wish to deter your effort), but I would seriously consider this FL car up for auction on ebay with a bad motor and put your motor in it. After all that patch work and time and material invested, this may be a better option with a rust free car. Plus, I believe your just beginning to find the rust, those are some difficult spots to get all the rust out.
Jaguar XJR | eBay

 

This is what stuff looks like here after a while, the salt we use in the winter is really tough on steel.
The area near the jack port looks like it needs some sort of welded in repair as that's a structural area. The others look cosmetic.
An owner in France posted pictures of his rust repair on a 3.2 sport. I thought he did a great job and it was all in his own driveway so either an artist or just very patient. You might look for his posts on body work to see what he got into. https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ogress-139268/ was the forum entry I'm referring to.
One thing I'd mention is the rubber undercoating can hide all sorts of things waiting to pop so you might consider removing all you can before deciding how to proceed. I used a heat gun (meant for paint removal) and scraper on an old MGB in the past and the job went relatively quickly.
I tend to use fiberglass cloth on rust holes and it holds up for years if you prep the surfaces carefully. You can even spread a thin coat of body filler and paint anything that's visible and a reapplication of 3M's rubberized undercoating makes it almost invisible in the wheel wells.
FWIW I'm always surprised what a small CL or eBay picture can hide but looking at that Fla-cat it's got some seriously dull paint on all the top facing surfaces at least. Repainting a whole car will be $$$ unless you can do that work yourself. You've got your own lift so maybe you could tackle a paint job as well. Not a tough job just a big job...

 

Been there and done most of these spots with my X308 XJR (felt like I was looking at my car for a minute) which was also a 98-reg, we put a lot of salt on our roads. The arches and rear lights originally I had rubbed down and filled, twice, it lasted between 2 and 6 months before I could see it coming back. On the 3rd go I decided to have the metal cut out and replaced. This was a much better fix and lasted nearly a year but I still found bubbles starting to come back where the joins had been this time.
Had new sills made also. Probably spent in the region of $5k over the period of 5 years on rust related items.

My advice is don't bother. It's painful, expensive and also finds a way to come back. I'd move the car on and perhaps get yourself a aluminum X350, I have a 2003, it's spent 13 years on our roads and not a spot of rust on it.

 

I'm gonna cut and weld in as much new metal as I can. Than epoxy over it. I don't like fixing rust with fiberglass. As far as paint, I do all my own work. I have two of the '98 cars that need pretty much the same repair. The reason for all the rust up front is the drain tubes from the cowl and the sunroof that are supposed to exit through the holes in the plastic wheel liner were tucked in behind the fenders by someone at one point.

 

I've got a few spots to do yet too... The front sill ends, under the plastic board infront of the windscreen and the right hand rear sill section. New metal, flood it with loads of wax and good.

 

Those pictures make me feel better about faded/failed paint and interior leather. Down here, away from the coast, we don't have to deal with rust. Paint can be resprayed, leather retrimmed, but rust is a lot of work to repair and rusted fasteners make other repairs more difficult.

When I moved down here from up north the rust on our cars went into suspended animation.

-Mike

 

Drivers side floor board

 

I dunno, that donor car looks a lot easier.....

I've done my share of body work agree you need to do metal for metal. The only way I see yours coming out correctly is a frame off total break down.

 

Dear Lord

did'ja know, there is a reason for junkyards?

 

Oh my!

Flintstone Brakes.

-Mike

 

Looks exactly like mine did everywhere, uncanny! Cut out every spot like your doing and welded in new stuff, luckily the "bones in the floor were still solid so I only needed to replace sheet metal. Lots of cutting/grinding discs, sawzall blades, not too much sheet metal, easily a few hundred hours in metal/body/paint, stepped on more than a few pairs of safety glasses along the way as well

 

eastwood has some good videos and tech articles on sheet metal repair you might check out.


I would like to respectfully ask though why you would purchase a car in that condition when there are rust free examples you can find for modest prices ? I admire the folks willing to tackle this kind of repair, but personally to me a car that had suffered that kind of damage even if nicely repaired would not be a car I would buy at any price unless it was a rare vintage car.

 

Got the car for $1500 and the interior is in surprisingly good shape. The lady selling it was fighting cancer. I sortoff didn't have the heart to part it out.

 

64vette is right, Eastwood has the videos, equipment and material to fix any part of any vehicle. I've used some of their stuff, its quality and worked great.

 

There is an Eastwood store a few miles from my house. I like some of their stuff, but a lot of their items are rebranded harbor freight quality tools.

 

Agree with Adam, I order from eastwood at least twice a month and lots of their products especially paint guns and DA sanders are knockoffs you can purchase elsewhere cheaper. On the other hand, their finishing products such as their compounds, buffing pads, etc. are amazing and wouldn't order any other brands, fact is they are made by Norton though. Its anyones personal choice with what they choose to restore, but one thing I can tell anybody is that doing simple sheet metal work on an x308 beats metal work on the paper thin fenders and floors of classic MG's and Triumph's any day. Keep em on the road!!

 

Got this cut out today. Air hammer with a chiesel attachement comes really handy.<br/><br/>

 

Funny thing you mention Triumphs. This is my father's waiting in line to be restored.

 

Seriously guys? Wow, I haven't used Eastwood tools in about 25 yrs, but I am floored (but not totally surprised) they are doing the rebrand thing (survival of the cheapest I guess). The most recent thing I did was their baked on finish paints about 8 yrs ago and it worked great.