Well...I know usually there is a lot of eye candy on this site, but have to share some sad photos and see if anyone has any insight to if this rust can be patched or needs new fenders and if anyone has had this work done and an estamate for the work. I know the full amount of rust can't be seen until paint's blasted off. I am looking for a body shop to work on it in south bay area/monterey bay area. I think the problem is it will be hard to get an estimate on the work with out the shop stripping the paint? Can I have someone strip then take to shops for estimates? Going to be repainted anyway.

Looks pretty darn minor from what I've seen. You should see our Midwest cars.
You usually start with four wheels and a seat.
Look through some of my photobucket shots by my signature.

You are correct. The pros are all retired and the kids don't know how to do rust repair and won't give you an estimate if they work on it. Its all done on a "pay by the hr" basis. If you wanna do it right you have to take off all panels and redo front to back. There's hidden rust you can't see even if you strip the car. I took a guy to court when I had my car done cause he threw out an estimate and went 3 times higher. I agreed to everything he did, didn't get nothing in writing, even if I did, I learned these cars aren't estimateable. You wanna do things right, it'll take 100reds of hrs, at a minimum of $60/hr - you do the math. Find retired body man, pay him to strip the car, ask for a min/max price for labor see if he'd give it to you. No shop will do it anymore. Unfortunately that is the reality. and the reason for the high restoration cost is spent on paint and body.

Been there done that
Bet that car needs full floors, floor bracing, rear frame rails.
Honestly would be cheaper to find another car.

Had my '67 coupe media blasted 1st after removing the exterior trim before I started the restomod 17 years ago. The shop should put down a nice coat of primer after stripping. It will likely be a span of 20 years between when my car was stripped and when the body work and paint takes place.

It IS a good way of knowing right off the bat how bad the sheet metal is and 1) do you want to deal with it and 2) you will know what panels you will be looking to replace.

I learned the hard way on my Trans Am restoration before this current one. The media gets everywhere and if the rest of the car is painted and assembled, you will be dealing with blasting dust for a long time. 2nd, the media can rebound off the shop floor and remove paint from items underneath

Having bought several, sometimes you are lucky to have the seat...

Ok, some good feedback so far. I like the idea of getting it blasted then primered. It is a factory 400 4spd vert that my dad bought new, so not looking for another car. I was thinking it would be hard to find a body shop that doesn't charge like an insurance claim, going to have to keep searching.

And to give you some encouragement, even though my car was an original "black plate" car from CA and every nut and bolt came off clean with the exception of one - I ended up replacing both front fenders and had the passenger door reskinned. There was a lot of bondo under the cheap paint job (interesting the same shade as your car) and enough debris had collected between one fender skin and the rear reinforcement brace to rust out a spot from the inside. The passenger door had been caved in, drilled and bondo'd and the other fender had been hit at the wheel well.

I do restorations and rough estimated this basket case at $20k just the sheet metal repair.

These are the wonderfull things you discover after having a car media blasted.

The rust through areas you are showing don't cover that large of an area, have you considered media blasting yourself. All you need is a compressor and blasting unit (pressurized ones at Harbor Freight work well). If you are only looking to keep it a driver you don't need to media blast everything, some POR15 will go a long way. If you are doing a nut and bolt frame off, that is where the cost skyrockets.

From the pictures it looks to me like the car was parked outside for a long time and it accumulated leaves, pine needles, dirt, etc. and water settled in and rusted through. Your floor pans and trunk will be dictated by how much the top and trunk seal leaked over the past 45+ years. However, it shouldn't be like the rust buckets we see here in the east and midwest. I envision lots of small patches not large section replacements, but that is my guess. You also may want to start looking for some NOS or rust free units for the front sections (valance and fender extensions).

I agree, but just to add to the difficulty of estimating a repair like this, it takes a lot longer to fix someone elses old repair than it would take to fix an unrepaired panel. All of the pictures in the original posters photos show previous repair. Btw the aftermarket fender extensions I used on my 68 fit perfectly and were inexpensive.
Big Chief did you fix that one or crush it?

Neill
The bucket O rust is put on the back burner.
Currently working on a 68 convertable 400 4 speed car

All the rust spots shown is the original body, no work done. The only part that I know of that has been worked on(questionably) is above the rear wheel where a garbage truck backed into it and was fixed with bondo. I didn't even put that photo in because I know that's going to need to be redone. This will be a weekend driver for my dad in Oregon. I just trailered it down to take it to a garage I trust so we can fix it for him to drive again finally. Doesn't have to be perfect, but would like to get rid of the cancer as much as possible. The trunk has a couple dime size holes but that's it. Haven't checked under the rest of the car yet but I know it wasn't too bad a while ago(fingers crossed).