Rust Repair

[daguse5853z]

Ok folks, here is my 2nd attempt at rust repair. I'm talking about welding new metal in place of rusty metal. This is inside the left front wheel well towards the firewall. Now originally it looked like a rust hole about the diameter of a soda can but after some inspection with the hammer it turns out to be alot worse lol.You can see the strut and sping on the left and thats the wiring harness from the interior.

The second pic is from the inside of the car, in the drivers footwell. The long gray area on the left is the doorjam. You can see the brakes and the halfshaft thro the floor! lol

I'll try and use a real camera for the rest of the pictures.

[admin]

That camera isn't half bad. Interested to see how it turns out. You should roll a few beads on the new metal for strength just for the hell of it like this.

[daguse5853z]

Here is the first sheet of metal I started to weld in place. I made patterns out of cardboard first to get an idea of what shape to cut the metal into. The metal I used was actually some old shop shelves that I cut down. I don't have a fancy break or anything of that nature so all the metal was cut with a cut-off wheel or mostly sheet metal snips.

Here is the second piece of metal I welded in place. I tacked welded it first. Once I got it where I thought was kosher I started running beads of weld. A good tip is to weld some, stop, hammer the metal close to the piece you're trying to weld it to, weld some more, and repeat with the hammering. If the air gap is too large you will end up burning a hole through the sheet metal and make more work for yourself.

This is pretty much the final product. Since it's underneath the car I wasnt real worried about dressing up the welds with a grinder. I've learned that you'll find alot of pinholes from grinding it down than if you let it alone. In my earlier pics you can see a large hole near the top of my repair. Well that's from dressing the welds and not paying attention to where the grinder was touching besides the weld. I ended up making that area real thin and burned right thro when I tried to fill it in. I ended up placing a piece of sheet metal behind the hole from inside the car and filling it in that way but you don't always have that option.

I applied 3 heavy coats of permatex rubberized underbody coating. I also lined all the seams inside the car with napa firm seam caulking. It comes in a tube and you need a caulking gun to get it out.

[admin]

Not bad at all. I really like the underbody coating. Now you don't have to worry about that happening again...Well at least in that spot.