Here I am working on my third gen. The car doesn't have too many rust issues but two of the wheel wells are terrible. passenger rear and driver front . Front seems fixable but the rear well is a different story. There were rust patches and holes everywhere and starting to eat the fender lip.

I cut out the bad spots, grind down the worst of it but things are still not working out for that rear wheel-well. I have some rust in "impossible to reach with a tool" areas and although i grinded most of the rust down, the metal that's left is very very porous and seem to have tiny specs of rust that i simply cannot grind out.

So I'm figuring that if i want to keep this car for a while considering the work and cash i'm putting in it, i should perhaps try using some rust converter. We have tremclad rust converter "works like por15". Has anyone had luck using any of this stuff? Or any rust converter for that matter?

 

WELL!! Seems like I found a solution for one problem. I used black sanding tip with my drill and it cleaned out the pores like crazy. very hard work though.

I'm still screwed for those hard to reach areas though.

And can anyone give me tips on how to the best was to repair the inner lip of the wheel well (fender lip.) The rust is splitting the thickness of the lip. Some people say to cut out the lip, use sheet metal and bondo while other say use fiberglass and bondo. which is better?

 

When the seam splits the rust is inside, between the layers and, in the long term, the only solution is to cut the whole area out. It's easier to create a "frame" for the bondo to bond to with metal than with fibre glass but really for a long lasting repair your better off to have a body shop weld it and seal it with an epoxy primer.

Something that you can do to make a short term repair last longer is to pick up some of Canadian Tire's Motomaster "rust remover". With as much of the rust removed as you can, liberally brush this stuff over the surface (a steel bristled tooth brush from RONA is great for this) and let it dry. Repeat a couple of times and rinse with clean water.

Now you need to seal the surface with something. Is Tremclad's converter as good as POR15. Hmmm, not so sure. It can't hurt though. Then spray it with Tremclad flat black (not gloss). Let it dry over night and then use a normal primer over the top. Now do your bondo, sanding etc...

For sure, this is not how a body shop would do things. But we're talking about save-my-3rd-gen-on-a-budget-every-man-for-himself-back-yard-body -work here. And it's way better than driving around with rusty wheel arches.

Once the paint has been on for a week get the car to a Rust Check or Krown rust proofing and have them soak it. If the person applying the rust proofing is less than 35 years old point out that you have speakers in the 'B' pillar that you would rather not have turned into swiss cheese!

Hope this is of some use.
Jon

JSD MOD

 

It does help, but doesn't. See, this car is apart right now. I'm fixing her all up before painting her. I've done paint jobs before for the fun of it and have done reealllyy good jobs. From the years of working on miniature model cars i guess, lol. So, i cannot bring her anywhere. So the point is, I want to be able to do as good as a job as I can. How would pro's usually handle this? Cut everything out wouldn't be possible without killing the structural integrity of the car... so would they sandblast perhaps?

As for the lip, I guess i can cut out the bad parts, weld a new one back and make it look good with a good body filler.

 

Yeah, the idea behind the 'rust remover' is that it takes the place of sandblasting though, admittedly, not as good. You know how you start removing rust and you get to a point that the metal is pretty clean except for some little black 'pits' or 'cavities'?

You can carry on grinding, making the surface ever thinner or maybe even going through, or find a way to get the rust out of the pits while leaving the surounding steel intact. Sandblasting with the right abrasive is ideal for this but not really practical at home. The rust acid is pretty much the next best thing.

Would the pros sandblast? Sometimes, assuming there aren't city by-laws preventing them from doing so. Usually though, cutting and welding patches is the preferred route.

If you have some experience at this the little Canadian Tire oxygen/MPS kit can be used to braze light metals together. I've used that kit once in a pinch when my torch was not working. Also, there is now a glue available to body shops that will bond metal together without welding. A body shop buddy of mine thumbed his nose at it for years but eventually tried it and was surprised at the results. I don't know what brand names it sells under so you'd need to contact a body shop supply store.

Jon