I took my beloved Zuk into an older gentlman who used to do bodywork for me.  He and I took a critical look under the truck and as I mostly knew already, I have several small holes in the floorboards.  
    The bad news is that the right rear mounting point for my passenger seat is completly rusted through and the seat has a bit of, let's call it suspension to it now.  
     In addition to that the rear body mounts have no metal surrounding them anymore and the driver's side front is well on its way.
   As for the rocker panels, I'm a little afraid to remove the plastic, good new is there is enough metal to still hold the plastic on but probably not much more than that.
    The thing is I love my Sidekick and it has been in the family since it was bought new nearly 20 years ago.  It's a 94 4door with 175k on the clock.  Mechanically it is in good shape with new tires and brakes and I just ordered new shocks and a 2" spacer lift.  I'm going to hold off on the suspension untill I get a second opinion on the rust.  
     The older gentleman is now 80 and though in great shape for his age, 80 is 80.  He doesn't have a lift and he says it is just too rough anymore for him to jack up the car and work underneath it.  Perfectly understandable but disappointing because he was so good at it and so cheap.  I have another guy I was refered to that I am taking it too tomorrow.

     When is too much too much?  I am thinking if it is much more than $500 that will be the line on whether it is salvagable or not.  
 I really want to keep this truck because like I had always planned to see it to at least 200k plus it has some sentimental value.  

So tell me some rust stories to cheer me up  

isn't rust just great? lol i have yet to own a rust free vehicle. here in b.c. EVERYTHING rusts. my tracker sounds a lot like yours. i'm afraid to just pull the carpet back. every time i hit a big puddle on the passanger side i get a nice fountain of water on the inside of the cab. the plastic on my rockers is held on with bailing wire since the metal that held them on is rusted clean off. the only reason i keep driving it is because the frame and everything is rust free and it has a new motor in it. once the body gets bad enough i will just put a new body on it.

The only time I would say there is too much rust to fix a vehicle is when it is let go so long that the structure physically starts buckling in on itself. At that point the geometry of the car or truck is just fubar and it's probably better to just salvage everything bolted down. Anything up to that point is totally dependent on what the owner wants to put into it with either time or money. I spent several months patching holes in the body of my tracker and doing some small frame and mechanical repairs. I may have spent a few hundred dollars at most on the materials needed to rejuvenate the body by myself but if I had paid a body guy to do it the same job would have definitely been several thousand dollars. Of course I spent way more than a few hundred over the years on tools and equipment but it just keeps on saving me money so I feel it's well worth the investment.
My suggestion would be to get some books on welding and body work, a basic mechanic tool kit and some body tools. Get a mig or hybrid welder that has the ability to use gas as flux cored burns pretty hot and can be really difficult on thin sheet metal. You can fix your ride up a little bit at a time and learn all kinds of new practical skills.
And remember not to worry too much about the aesthetics of your first body repairs. The goal is to keep the vehicle on the road and stop the rust from spreading.

what he said^^^
if the frame is rotted to the point of where it is unsafe then it's too far gone. if it's just the body then that can be fixed with a whole bunch of new sheet metal or just a whole new body.

Ah dang. Too bad it isnt a samurai. My samurai is rusting apart also. Luckily I found a company that makes replacement panels for the samurai (floor panels, wheel wells, etc) but they dont have sidekick parts. Do some searching online and maybe youll find some for a sidekick.

Thanks for all the great responses.  The frame seams solid, at least no rust I can find.  I'll go ahead and take it to this guy and see what he says and if it is too expensive I will look into more DIY options.

WI Zukiman,
Who is the company that sells replacement Samurai panels?

Theyre online at www.extremebends.com Some of their prices are a bit high but they are the only place ive found that have floor panels and wheel wells which is exactly what i need. Front passenger side of my body bounces on the frame when i go over a bump

Oh, I've stumbled on that website before.  

Looks like they simply resell Suzuki OEM parts, more so than manufacture new parts.  You should be able to get the floor pan parts from the dealer too.  How did the parts you ordered look like?

I discovered a fair amount of floor/rocker damage on my 98' sidekick, along with a portion of the drivers seat support. I simply cut the bad sections out and started tacking in pieces of steel(8' commercial florescent light housings) to seal up the cab and replace the seat mount. Then coated the repair area with chassis saver. Then I used Monstaliner to coat the entire inside.

i was pulling the back seat out of my 1986 samurai, the guy had put flat head bolts in the mounts to hold the seat in, there was so much rust there i ended up just pulling the mount and bolt out. lol. it just pulled a small chunk of rust out. as i got out of the back my knee ended up going through the floor pan. and when i went to relace my rear drums i went through a can of PB blaster on each side to get it apart and to get the E-brake mechanism freed up. any work i need to do under my samurai i make sure i buy a few cans of PB blaster. i end up using alot of it!!! i live in upstate NY and the rust is HORRIBLE! things are actually welded together almost with rust.


hope that helped with your rust blues!

i know what you mean, I also live in wonderous NY state. Make sure to slather the anti-sieze on everything when ya put it back together.