[swazo]

I've cut out some poorly done patch panels that I found on my Impala once I stripped the paint. Typical places, before and after the rear wheel wells.

I noticed a fair amount of surface rust on the inner area once the patches of the q.panel were removed. Is this a Pandora's box type situation? No cancer, which has to be a good sign.

So far, I've sprayed my new patches with weld-thru type primer on both sides. I do have epoxy DTM, etching primer, POR15 and a few other products onhand.

Opinions?

 

[steve t]

i sprayed my inside panels with rust mort, it suppost to treat the rust and stop it,

 

[oldred]

If you have rust on the inside of your panels and leave it there it will come through to the surface sooner or later, you can bet on it. It does not make much sense to spend all the money and time that goes into a job only to leave something that will come back and ruin it. Do your self a favor and cut it out now and be done with it because if you try to take a short cut by using one of the "magic rust killer solutions" then most likely you will have rust bubbling up under your paint before long. It is easier and a HECK of a lot cheaper to do this right the first time than to do it over again.

 

[steve t]

well if you try to cut all the surface rust out of your panels you would have to buy a new body

 

[adtkart]

Like Red said, if you leave rust there, even with the "Magic Cures", it will come back and haunt you. Rust needs to be removed, one way or the other. If it is surface rust, then either sand it off, or media blast, and get it off. There is also a thread here by Randy Ferguson on rust removal using chemicals that is very informative.

On areas where the rust is too thick, or thru, the rust needs to be cut off, and either the panel patched, or replaced.

Once the rust is removed, it needs to be coated with epoxy primer, to seal out the moisture. Make sure that any seam sealer in the body is removed and replaced, where there are no water leaks later.

Aaron

 

[swazo]

I'll try to get some more pictures.

When I say rust, it's more like a dusting of rust. It's not flakey or even pitting the metal. It's on the inner fender area, between the back of the quarter panel and what not. I'd bet all the "rusty" metal is still atleast 18-20GA thick. It's a '64, rust is going to be on the car somewhere.

The ONLY cancer is where I'm replacing some half a$$ed patches. Other than that, it's not in bad shape at all.

Here's one of the patches that I've cut out. It's in a cheap rattle can etch primer.

Here's the hole the previous owner had simply slapped a small patch OVER the hole (no flange or anything :boxing: ) and tacked into place. This is as bad as it gets as far as rust. This shows (besides the hole) the worst of the surface rust, and I'm guessing it's because it was raw/untreated metal. The rest does have something like an undercoating or something that has the 'dusting' of rust.

I hate redo'ing someone elses work! Especially something done so craptasticlly like this. It'll be worth it though.....

 

[swazo]

This shows the hole much better (no flash does wonders!) At the top (in this pic atleast) is what the rest of the inner panel looks like. Like I said before, it's not flakey and it most deffinatly is not cancer. I've read and heard that this amount isn't uncommon and as long as it's not getting soaked with water via a bad plug or filled with wet leaves or the like, it won't turn into cancer.

I'm doing a rotisserie restoration, and time isn't an issue. I just don't want to go overboard if I can avoid it.

 

[adtkart]

Rust of any type IS cancer. If you leave it, the moisture in the air will allow it to grow.That is why you need to clean it off and seal the area with epoxy primer.

Aaron

 

[kenseth17]

You need to get rid of that rust, even on inner areas. Some things like insides of doors for example are very difficult, but most can be cleaned up by sandblasting. a por 15 type product on the insides would be better than just leaving it, but I don't have a lot of faith in a shortcut like this. If there is any rust is always fighting to come back on you.If you just leave it it will continue to rust away and even if there are not holes now, there will likely be in the near future. Once the metal is clean and free of rust, epoxy can do its job of protecting it from corrosion. Treat the backsides of your new patches too. There is no shortcuts in rust repair. The work involved and the fact even when you feel you have dealt with it properly, there could be some area you missed or couldn't treat well is why many places won't take rust repairs, or won't warrenty it if they do. Here is what happens when you leave rust. This mustang I worked on someone previously left the original rusted quarter in place and put a new quarter over it which then proceded to rust thorough. I cleaned up the inside when the rusted old piece and new piece were both removed, and patched it with a new piece. The cleanup was done with a cheap siphon feed blaster which is all I had at that time. It takes quite a bit of time with one of these, but leaving it is just being lazy. It doesn't take a real huge investment in equiptment to do , mostly time and work. No reason to leave rust go or take care of and treat interior areas if you can.

 

[oldred]

You have to remember that the Major rusting that resulted in the holes that were patched started out as "minor" rust(if there is such a thing) and this heavy rusted area is just an extension of the "minor" rusted area so where does it stop? If you have that thing on a rotisserie then you are obviously doing a total restoration so why go to that much trouble and then leave rust in the body? IMO there are two common mistakes that ruin a restoration more than anything else and that is-

1-"well that's good enough"

2-"that little bit won't hurt anything"

 

[woodz428]

Many times what happens, and appears to be the case with yours, people simply put a patch over the rust and don't cut it out and "install" a patch. My Great Aunt, bought a 1966 Mustang new and drove it until she wasn't able to. Sometime in the 80s she approached be ,because I specialized in Mustangs, about repairing the rust in the rear quarters. I was straight forward, because I knew she was almost 80 at the time, and told her I would charge more than what she would want to pay, for the amount of use she was going to get. She took it to a local body shop that installed quarters and repainted it. About 10 years ago she gave it to her granddaughter and when she graduated she brought it to me to see about ressurecting it. It had sat in my Great Aunt's unheated garage for about 10 years and when I looked it over, it was a mess. The shop had placed the new panels right over the old rusty ones and , of course, the area between the 2 had held moisture everytime there was high humidity and/or temp.changes. The repair was going to require much more work than it would have to do it correctly the first time, because the new panels were bubbling up from rust in between the panels. If you want to do any rust repair correctly, the rust needs to be removed from the beginning or you'll wind up wasting your time to only have to correct it again later...with much MORE time.

 

[steve t]

o k we all agree, rust is bad, but some of us cant get rid of ever ounce of rust in a body, with out chemically dipping it, that means taking the car totally apart

 

[oldred]

I guess you have to look at what you expect when the job is finished, will it be a "restoration" that will last and look good for a long time or is this to be something to drive for a while and then unload when it starts to fail? If it is going to be the latter then why bother to disassemble and mount on a rotisserie when it can be "patched" without going to all that trouble. Leaving rust IMO is similar to, or worse than, just filling deep dents with bondo since it may look good at first but it may be a mess a lot sooner than one might expect. I repaired a door a couple of years ago that someone had "capped" with a new lower skin like the q-panels that have been mentioned and this thing was a total mess. I just don't understand why anyone would do crap like that since it probably was nearly as much trouble, or more so, to cobble that thing on there and get it looking even half way right as it would have been to fix it right in the first place. I know about getting all the rust out of a car and in fact I am in the process or repairing a dash and cowl panel on a 65 Mustang now that was "repaired" with a rust treatment and patches but now is going to cost the owner again I have removed and separated the cowl sections, removed the dash and separated the bracing and brackets, sandblasted these parts and sprayed with epoxy, the rust is GONE not covered up! Was this a lot of trouble? Not as much as might be expected since the car is stripped for restoration and was brought to me for welding. This car was "restored" less than 4 years ago and the patched cowl, rear floor(treated with some type of rust converter) and the dash had all failed due to rust returning because the shop took shortcuts and did not remove the rust or replace the rusted metal even though the car had been stripped bare that time also. Do it right the first time and be done with it.

 

[Rambo_The_Dog]

I've cut out some poorly done patch panels that I found on my Impala once I stripped the paint. Typical places, before and after the rear wheel wells.

I noticed a fair amount of surface rust on the inner area once the patches of the q.panel were removed. Is this a Pandora's box type situation? No cancer, which has to be a good sign.

So far, I've sprayed my new patches with weld-thru type primer on both sides. I do have epoxy DTM, etching primer, POR15 and a few other products onhand.

Opinions?

Sounds like you have taken the exact steps I would have done to repair and treat the current rust - without tearing the car down and dipping it!

While it's true that if you don't remove all rust it will come back (or possibly get worse) - unless you're building a show car or doing a restoration I'd say that's just part or the "experience" of owning and driving an older car - otherwise you should just plunk down your hard earned cash on one of the newer "plastic" cars that don't rust!

For a driver the best that you can do (short of a complete tear down..) is to repair the areas that you can, treat what you can reach or see and realize that if you keep the car and drive it - in 3-5 years some rust areas may show back up...guess what...then you cut it out and fix it!

The single biggest mistake I have seen is not making the patches big enough...a good idea is to probe the area with a pick to make sure the metal is not too thin around the welded patch.

 

[oldred]

Rambo I think you have said it best, The question is not so much whether to cover the rust or replace it as it is "do I want to do this again in about 3 years or so"?

 

[swazo]

Thanks for the replies, they're forcing me to think things through

To follow up on something that I haven't seen addressed is to fix WHY it is rusting where it is. What I've noticed in each spot, there is a missing drain plug (whatever you call them, basically a solid grommet), missing 'Impala' letters and a bad trunk seal. All of which has allowed water and debris to get into the trouble areas, and rust out.
On '64 Impala's you can get into the trunk and reach down all the way to the bottom of the quarter panel.... even though access is a tad tight.

I've cut out the bad areas, and I will media blast the 1.5" tall rusty seam along the mating surface of the q.panel and inner panel, etch prime, epoxy prime and use seam sealer where needed. I will also replace the missing drain plugs w/ silicone sealant to take make sure they seal totally. Of course, the missing 'Impala' letters will be replaced and all weather stripping is getting replaced.

I'd rather take the time to do it right now rather than have any problems down the road. I like doing things once imp:

 

[adtkart]

At any mating surfaces where you will be welding, you need to use weld thru primer. On all other bare metal areas, you need to use epoxy primer. No need for etch primer at all.

The lower pocket of the quarterpanel should have some kind of drain. Most had a "flapper" type of plug in a hole down there. If you want to seal it, you can usually find a rubber hole plug of that size to use. I would not use silicone sealer on the car body. Holes from emblems are a source for water to get in. You do need to make sure that they are filled with something, if emblems are not installed.

Aaron

 

[modas]

Swazo -

what year Impala are you working on? I'm currently in a full blown frame off on a '64 convertible (non-ss)

Got any pics???? I would love to see the project.

Joe

 

[baddbob]

Some areas just can't be cleaned internally without dipping which also has some major downsides. For these areas that are structurally sound but surface rusted you need to coat the interior so the rust stops-goes dormant. Cavity wax type sprays like cosmoline and 3M rustfighter are self healing, penetrate into crevices and seam them from oxygen. For those interior areas that can be cleaned epoxy primer is your best bet. Boxed areas and seams are the toughest to deal with.