I will apologize in advance for sounding like a complete noob,
however:
I recently bought a 86' FC as a project, the car is rusty.. but not overly (mostly quarter panels And rockers)

My question is.. since there is no "frame" to rust out.. where are the most...structural parts i should be examining for rust

so far from my brief examination (haven't had it on a hoist yet) the rocker panels are shot(getting new ones from mazda)and rear quarter panesl and around the hatch glass need some patching.,

But the rear and front sub frame look good.. also the strut mounts all around are showing no signs of rust..

So just wondering if there are any more spots i should be paying special attention to.

here is a pic of the Passenger rocker.. and you can see a bit of the underbody also

..cheers guys!

 

Wow.
I hope you are good with a welder.That looks nasty.

Mostly on a Cdn car the sections are usually the floor and rockers.
The rear struts are way up there so they don't get effected by any weather.Same with the front strut area,that is usually solid and takes a bit to get at.
The frame area around the starting of the floor/bottom of firewall and the Lower control arm area behind the small plastic fender liner(that is held on with 2-10mm bolts) are a place you may want to look at also.

 

Haha. yeah im starting to get handy with it :p. ahh okay il check those spots out thanks! the other side is better. so hopefuly after i fix that the other side is a breeze. thanks for the info!

 

Always keep the wheel wells in check as that is where most of the salt/road debris sits. I have rust on my 89 but I can keep it minimal by washing most of it away. Underlining is your best bet when you fix your rust problems.

 

Wow, that looks pretty crazy. I just got an 88 FC & i have a softball size rot hole on the rail. In for repair pics!

 

have you considered taking the car to a facility that will sandblast it? there could be a substantial amount of rust hiding from you that you might not be able to see. sandblasting it will show you everything you need to repair and it will already be prepped to weld. no hours of flap discs and grinding.

 

Very good idea to expose all the rust so you can see what you're working with.

 

if done properly, the process should remove most or all the rust. all that would be left to do would be to fill up all the gaping holes.