Wrenchin... Adventures under the hood... Put em here.

[basinbeater]

Put some fiberglass mesh tape over after you've ground all the surface rust off and then cover with bondo. I did it to a much bigger hole on a truck bed once, worked great. Fiberglass mesh tape gives bondo something to hold onto.

sent from Utah.

[The Reverend Floater]

Put some fiberglass mesh tape over after you've ground all the surface rust off and then cover with bondo. I did it to a much bigger hole on a truck bed once, worked great. Fiberglass mesh tape gives bondo something to hold onto.

sent from Utah.

This is also how I did it.

[Dantheman]

So, no bondo in the hole? Or fill the hole with bondo, then tape, then more bondo to cover?

[highangle]

You can use lead too.



Whatever you do, get all the rust out before you repair good metal.

[basinbeater]

Yeah, make sure you got that hole nice and cleaned out before you begin slappin stuff on there. Put some thin sloppy body filler around the hole, and while it is still wet, put a few pieces of the fiberglass tape on it, so it presses into the thin sloppy stuff, let it set up, then you can apply thicker body filler to the tape to fill in the hole. Sand it all smooth, and bust out your favorite rattle can and presto, hole gone.

edit: to stop the rust, after you have hammered it with the grinding wheel, and whatever else you can to get all the rust off, hit it with POR15 or some other serious anti rust shit. Then fill hole.

[bagtagley]

If you want the easy route, you could try some rust converter. My old man kept our old Japanese cars going forever with the stuff. Not pretty, but it seemed to work.

[basinbeater]

If you want the easy route, you could try some rust converter. My old man kept our old Japanese cars going forever with the stuff. Not pretty, but it seemed to work.

You need to knock off any loose or flaking rust before you put that stuff on or the rust will continue underneath, and your converted flakes will fall off showing you the continuing rust. Por15 is a permanent rust repair.

sent from Utah.

[Dantheman]

Yeah, make sure you got that hole nice and cleaned out before you begin slappin stuff on there.

The fact that it's rusting from the inside out makes this problematic. Getting all the rust out/off just isn't possible. No matter what I do it seems like it's going to continue rusting back there. I'll have to be careful with the grinder, it could be easy to go right through good metal on the outside into rotten junk underneath it.

edit: to stop the rust, after you have hammered it with the grinding wheel, and whatever else you can to get all the rust off, hit it with POR15 or some other serious anti rust shit. Then fill hole.

Some kind of pre-treatment before filling seems wise. What's the difference between POR15 and other rust converters?

[basinbeater]

I personally have not used it myself, but guys doing body work and frame restorations seem to like it. Rust bullet is another. I researched both a bit a while back, and ended up using heavy duty rustoleum brush on over prepped rust on a frame a while back.
Here is a thread on mud that talks about por15 and rust bullet.
https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/pro...bullet.207248/

sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

The fact that it's rusting from the inside out makes this problematic. Getting all the rust out/off just isn't possible. No matter what I do it seems like it's going to continue rusting back there. I'll have to be careful with the grinder, it could be easy to go right through good metal on the outside into rotten junk underneath it.



Some kind of pre-treatment before filling seems wise. What's the difference between POR15 and other rust converters?

If you put the patch in over rust, meaning you didn't cut all the rust out, you will be doing this again in a year or two.could take a sawsall with a metal cutting blade and trim around the hole (making the hole bigger) until you get it all. If that is a lower valence on the car, you may be better off just buying a used one without a giant rust hole, and slapping it on there. But if I recall you said truck bed, so it is probably not a bolt on piece to the bed.

sent from Utah.

[Dantheman]

could take a sawsall with a metal cutting blade and trim around the hole (making the hole bigger) until you get it all.

The whole will get a lot bigger fast doing that. This might just have to be an ongoing thing where I keep chasing the shit for as long as I own the truck.

But if I recall you said truck bed, so it is probably not a bolt on piece to the bed.

Definitely not a bolt on piece, I wish. I keep thinking there's got to be some amigos at a west side body shop that could knock this job out in a few hours for a couple hundo.

[basinbeater]

The one I did with the tape method (some 20 years ago!) was larger than my open hand. You are probably right about the ghetto body shops, or just some dude that does it as a side job. Try KSL? Or one of the local car facebook
car groups?

Or hell, get some stuff, and bring it over. we could knock it out in a couple hours for sure.

[El Chupacabra]

I'm going to be doing a similar rust repair on the rocker panels on my truck cab. I'll be using bondo with fiberglass strands premixed in ("bondo hair"). After I cut out the rusty bits, my plan is to fill the hole with metal mesh cut roughly to shape and probably screwed in place. The mesh I have has approx 1 cm square openings, which I hope will hold the bondo well enough.

I'm going to use a 4" grinder and sanding flap discs, and a wire wheel on a drill, for cutting/sanding etc.

Paint plan is to brush POR15 on any remaining rusty bits - I've used it before and it works well so long as there is some rough and/or slightly rusty (no flakes) metal to bond with. Going to primer then use some brush on DIY bedliner to cover the whole thing. Since it's the rocker panel, doesn't matter if it's bedliner black - doesn't need to match the rest of the truck.

I've never done bondo repairs before. It's a 19-year old truck and it's got its share of dents and scratches. Just looking to fix the rocket holes and prevent more rot.

[highangle]

The whole will get a lot bigger fast doing that. This might just have to be an ongoing thing where I keep chasing the shit for as long as I own the truck

Yea verily one cannot wisheth the hole smaller than THE TRUTH hath made it. It is that it is.
That is The Law of Corrosion, as old and as true as the sky.
And the truck that shall keep it may prosper, but the truck that shall break it must die.

Definitely not a bolt on piece, I wish. I keep thinking there's got to be some amigos at a west side body shop that could knock this job out in a few hours for a couple hundo.

May be the Way. Consult the burning bush.

[Dantheman]

The corrodibility of iron/steel relative to other metals is one of those things that makes me think maybe God does exist and his favorite pastime is fucking with people.

[basinbeater]

Agree with you there. I was pulling the o2 sensors on my bimmer the other night, and one of them would not budge. I hit it with PB blaster, torch, and a BFH. Took 20+ mins to get it to budge, then it took another 20 of moving it back and forth slowly increasing the amount it would back out, to finally get it out. Threads on the sensor were corroded to shit. Very lucky the wrench did not round off all the edges, as they were starting to fail. New ones got copper anti seize goop on them before they went in.

Corrosion sucks.

[basinbeater]

Said O2 sensors. Fwiw, if you want to analyze your ow sensors, check this out.


sent from Utah.

[highangle]

"Now they will know why they are afraid of electrolysis. Now they learn why they fear oxidation."

[happytimefunbox]

My friends here will appreciate

[SirVicSmasher]

^^^priceless... Type of shit a boy hears at a young age and never needs to be taught how to cuss.

We had a rare for us and very intense thunder storm last night with 2000 lightning strikes in 3 hours and lots of rain anyways went out to the old benz and there was a puddle on the driver's side floor matt with water dripping like a mfer
From the dash. First thought was the sunroof drain must be clogged and what you know...
Waited till this morning got up before the kids so they wouldn't be fucking with me and all in my tool box hiding sockets like they do. Turns out the drain is behind the fender so first I tried snaking the drain but that didn't work so ended up taking the fucking fender off. Compressed air shot all that shit out the top and fixed the problem.

Sent from my H3223 using Tapatalk

[Rideski]

[gravitylover]

Ooh clogged rains, the bane of existence of anyone that lives in a heavily treed area. During the fall our cars get covered in leaves and the drains get clogged every year. I haven't had to take fenders off yet but I have had to pull wiper arms off, cowls off and brake lights out to get to to blockages. I've used compressed air to blow them out and made a mess doing it but I guess it's better than watching the fender fall off because the mounts have rotted away.

[Rideski]

Bought a harbor freight centech battery charger. Appears dead out of the box.
I guess most proactive solution is to yank battery and take it down there to try the next one to make sure I don’t get two duds in a row.

[powdrhound]

Or:
Take it back, go somewhere else and get a good one?

[happytimefunbox]

Bought a harbor freight centech battery charger. Appears dead out of the box.
I guess most proactive solution is to yank battery and take it down there to try the next one to make sure I don’t get two duds in a row.

Or:
Take it back, go somewhere else and get a good one?

Or your battery physically failed and one of the plates is shorted to another. If that is the case battery wont take a charge

Autozone can test your battery