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What I did. Only moderately expensive ($400-500 total) Posted by Notnoel [Email]  (#23) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Notnoel) on Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:59:08
In Reply to: Rear Quarter Panel Help/Advice, Judge Edo, Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:48:02 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
I had a similar problem with my passenger's side rear quarter panel (don't know the extent of your issue) two years ago. I have a 1990 vert, so my rear fender set-up is essentially identical to yours. I the process of switching my normal bumper extensions to a set of self-modified SPG panels (cut down to fit the different body style), found a large area of body rust (3" wide and about a foot long) on the fender below the bumper extension, but that did not getup into the arch area, and which would be covered by the bumper extension.
I had the body shop cut that rust from the outer fender (as they'd done earlier on my front quarter panel a year earlier). I wanted them to cut out and weld in new metal for the inner fender as well, but to do that would have required the removal of the gas tank tank and tripled the price. What I ended up opting for was to have them do the outer fender and weld in fresh metal leaving me a lip on the inside and priming the exterior metal, etc. I then painted that with a good quality spray paint because it was all hidden by the bumper extension anyway.
On Friday night after work I picked up the car from the body shop and moved on to the homework phase. I took a grinder to the inner fender and ultimately to the inside of the trunk box below where the fueling port comes in. I stripped the crap out of it, eventually most of the inner fender up to the weld with the chassis and ab out 6-8 inches tall. Visualize an 8x8x5 inch triangle pointing down.
When I was satisfied that I'd gotten all of the rust I could, I used a triple rinse of Metal-Ready/water, And stopped for the evening leaving a heat lamp of the area to allow it to dry overnight. The next day, I followed that up by adding a triple coat of POR-15.
While the second coat of POR-15 was still tacky, I used fiberglass webbing (normally used for drywall projects that you can get from Home Depot) to rough out a porous framework where the inner fender had once been, then painted it over (just the edges with a light coating of POR-15 to bond it in place. After the third coat dried, I added a fourth POR-15 application across the webbing, and since I had access to the backside of the main fender patch form the hole in the wall between the inner fender and the trunk, I slathered POR-15 on the framework from the backside too. This effectively results in an epoxy like patch of 1/16 -1/32 inch mesh across the patch. This process took a couple of hours over the course of the weekend to acccomodate drying times, etc.
After letting this set up overnight, I simply put the wheel on, drove it to work on Monday (it didn't rain or anything), and finished the repair in a couple of hours on Monday night. I applied a layer of normal, fine mesh fiber glass over the framework, and smoothed it out. By using the POR-15 and the mesh framework, I not only got a really good surface for the fiberglass resin to adhere to, but also avoided the problem of the new resin dissolving the framework mesh from its hold on the car body (resin doesn't dissolve POR-15). I thought about adding another layer of fiberglass, but decided I'd rather allow it to remain more flexible. The next morning I sprayed it with undercoating, let that dry during the day while I was at work, and put the bumper extension back on on Tuesday evening.
The repair has held up beautifully over the past two winters, wasn't hard to do, and saved me a bundle. Although I'd almost always go for welding metal in anywhere else. This was a pretty good accomodation for the gas tank's location. If it ever start's to look sketchy, I also know it would be easy to rip out and renew if I needed to.
, Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:21:06, Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:59:08 <-- Viewing This Message, Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:54:01
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