Yup....inner rocker rot....

[Mernsy]

Right on!
Be sure to tell him the whole world is watching through the amceaglesden.com .   

[Obscurity]

LOL, will do! I'll try to get some pics of the guy as he is working.....quite the interesting looking fella. Looks almost identical to Lemmy from Motorhead. Going to be an entertaining fix I think!

[Whuntmore]

pull up the carpet,
the side trim (covers the seat belt),
consider taking the seat belts out, or just from the bottom,
get the wires off the floor (suspend them any way you can)
scrape off that black tar that once was seam seal and sound deadening, (It can catch fire real easy), you can use Lacquer thinner to remove the residue.
just in case, remove anything that can catch fire just in case you don't scrape that black stuff off very well - Like door panels, other trim pieces around or near the floor.

consider wire-wheeling off paint around the areas you're gonna weld,
and wire-wheel (sandblast, whatever) off any undercoating in and around areas to be welded.

Make sure you're NOT welding close to brake lines, and especially the fuel lines (any steel lines for that matter)

floor, rockers, and other unibody shell steel is about 18 gauge (what I found)
body panel steel is about 20 gauge. 
I think part of the frame steel and supports is about 10-12 gauge.   
The extra supports (re-enforcements, whatever) inside the rockers are like 12 gauge. 

I'm not sure if there's anything heavier besides the bumper mounts, and stuff like that.  I'm talking body.

Have a good working fire extiguisher handy, and consider having a spotter just in case.

[Obscurity]

Great "To-do" list Whuntmore.....I"m likely going to be using that......
Looks like a bit of a new plan is developing...
Had the guy look at the Eagle last night, he is a bit concerned about where the good metal will start/end, and is worried he's going to get into a rather bigger job than expected (though he almost decided to do it anyway, because he had thought I was asking for a favor....not to hire him, paused for a sec when I told him "I was going to pay you either way...."). He also has a pretty awful case of developing arthritis, and with the weather, it would be tough. He said to get some prices elsewhere, and if someone says they'll do it for $1000 to jump on it, because not many people will do it for less than that. Professional shop, he expects about $2000-$3000. I gave the rocker-skirts a mild kick when he was there....."Those'll have to be done too".

We're in a tough situation.....tight on cash, need a daily driver ASAP, don't want to get a half-a-- job done just to get by and potentially cause more issues down the road. Cars rot FAST here.....not sure if this job would deal with all of the rust enough to prevent a complete rot by springtime, leaving us with a rusted hunk of metal and an over-expensive engine. Also got some engine tweaking and electrical to do to make sure things are hunky-dory and reliable.

We're going to put the Eagle in my grandmother's garage and get a $1000-2000 "beater" that is inspected until at least mid summer next year  (no joke guys....this hurts). In the meantime, once we buy my grandmother's house (pending our house selling), I'll be able to chip away at it. AND I may look up the guy on Kijiji offering welding lessons for $20/hour.....and I will do the rockers myself once I have enough skill and circumstances are right (I have access to a welding machine I can likely borrow).

Well...at least the Eagle is with me now....we accomplished that much. Still going to get another price or two on the rockers more for curiosity......but we can't strip it down to bones right now, which is really the right thing to do to ensure we won't be playing constant catch-up with rust for years. I think its best to do this right since I intend on this eventually being a reliable daily driver until I can't drive any more.

[1985amceagle]

Another area that likes to rot out is the fenderwells, I have decent sized rust holes hiding under the flares on my car. But I am afraid that is from a poor paint job that was done to the car when it was wrecked at some point

[Nightpath]

Do a search on Kijiji right now in Nova Scotia for some Eagles, there's a few close to the NS - NB border I guarantee you'd get for less than $1000! Just look them over closely before you decide on buying one. I bet you'd pick either up for cheap, especially since that brown one hasn't been running in a while.

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/new-glasgow-ns/please-read-eagle-amc-awd-no-pictures-yet/1027501640?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/truro/1985-amc-eagle/1022125954?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

[Obscurity]

Ohh, thank you Nightpath, I'll check into those, and watch to see how long they stay on there. I can't get a parts car until after we move (no takers on our house yet.....ugh!). We have some lookers at the house that want to move before Christmas....if they buy our house I'll be calling for a parts car!
Kinda sucks, a few minutes after actually paying the money for the car we bought I got an email from a guy advertising on Kijiji for doing rockers. He LOVES Eagles....has had a couple in the past, is excited to work on mine....if it hadn't already been in storage he wanted to come see it. I promised to keep his info on hand for the spring, which is when we'll hopefully be able to get started on it again. He figured about $600-800 (a sight-unseen quote....).
I've checked out the fender wells, and they actually look pretty good, though they haven't had enough poking around to be sure it is all good metal. Looking forward to moving (hopefully soon...though I'm not holding my breath) and getting into the actual heated (though really tiny) garage and crawling around the Eagle some more to get a better idea of what it needs and start working on at least the non-welding stuff.

[Whuntmore]

 Still going to get another price or two on the rockers more for curiosity.....

One place that I found that made me inner/outer rockers is of all places - a coppersmithing shop.  They usually make those really cool range hoods outta copper and some stainless steel, and make all those fancy designed backsplashes, fireplace outers, and other stuff.

He made me up a set of 6' rockers from 18 gauge steel for $60. 

Try sheet metal places, coppersmithing shops, or anywhere they might work with any kind of sheet metal.