Originally Posted by Billybob

Is that the only jack point in that condition? If not you are going to need to seriously consider if the car is terminal with respect to rust.

Essentially with that area you’ll need to go all the way to the inside wall of the rocker channel box because the jack point tube is no longer structurally secured to it. The effort to stop the rusting and rebuild that area is all but impossible to do correctly without cutting out almost the entire rocker area and replacing it with new metal, then all the repair has to be sealed with something like Wurth Cavity Wax Aerosol 500ml – 0891081 or something similar to prevent it rusting from the inside out, and you’d need to similarly rust prevent, seal and repaint the exterior of that repair. That is a job that will be many hundreds if not a thousand dollars. Not to mention the guys doing a repair like that will have to secure the chassis in a frame jig to keep it straight when they cut all the rot out because the rocker channel box is a major structural member of these Uni-Body cars.

The best thing you might do is to chop out the worst, weld in enough supporting steel to fix the jack tube in place, scab some sheet metal to take place of the rocker sections that are gone. That way you can accomplish a quick and dirty way to restore the function of the jack point. Then get a set of plastic lower cladding that you can cover the rockers over with. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about inspections if you have them where they are.

You could always buy a gallon of epoxy and get a hundred pounds of sand, mix up a batch of epoxy, mix in as much sand as you can to form a mortar, then get the jack tube in place and pack the area around it with the epoxy/sand mix. Do that a couple times and fill in the area around the jack tube and extend the packing into the area of the rocker channel that is still structurally sound. That will secure the jack tube and restore its function for about $100! You can finish the exterior to look just like the rest of the rocker and paint it up to match. The block of epoxy rock will last about 500 years!

If you had caught it ten years ago you could have used something like this! But the entire front and bottom side of your rocker is gone looking at your picture!

http://cgi.ebay.de/Reparaturblech-Schweller-Wagenheberaufnahme-W124-NEU_W0QQitemZ380188016610QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAutoteile_Zubeh%C3%B6r?hash=item5884f8bfe2

P. S. if you really love your car, and I think it's clear you do, you should start looking for someone down south with a nice 124 with a dead engine/tranny that you can transplant your power train into eventually. I picked up a rust free example from a forum member for a couple hundred after the engine and tranny was cannibalized from it. The only way you’ll be driving one in 10-15 years is if you build your own, good examples of diesel 124 cars are growing fewer and further between every year. You can keep an eye out and jump on a good one once in a while if you’re ready cash in hand sometimes, there’s was one sold out of Atlanta a month or two ago here on the forum.