Rust Holes Repair

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The problem is getting to the backside. And more importantly, getting all the crud out thst caused it to rust from the inside out. I'd suggest cutting out a square to get to the inside, try to vacuum out all the crap, then patch the hole with good metal.

My quarters had a good 4-5" deep pile of dirt, rust flakes, etc between the outer skin and the inner panel. I couldn't access it till I cut the quarter off.

Plus, the inner panel will be just as soft and rusty and needs fixed too. It's easiest to remove the whole quarter to find all the hidden rust, fix it, and patch the quarter and re-use, or get a new quarter.

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If you had looked at the pictures you would have seen that there is no back side.

First off - you are crazy - it's a good crazy, but still crazy. I think I would have started with a better car.

My suggestion would be to cut out the section and weld in a patch. It looks like to big an area for welding the holes.

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By the way, knowing that both sides of the metal are clean, what would be your concerns if using fiberglass, or something similar, as a backing to support a skim of filler on the outside? Do you think the filler might crack or break at the interface, causing the paint to crack? These are small holes, and generally the metal without holes is in decent shape.

Thanks.

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Yep, I think that at some point the filler will crack and the metal will start rusting again. Clean or not, metal that has pitted is 10x more likely to rust than metal that hasn't been rusted/pitted. Filler isn't meant for this kind of repair and fiberglass is a bandaid. If I ever found fiberglass on the back of a panel, I'd run, not walk away from the car.

Do it once, do it right.


Dave

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I HATE doing rear quarters because if the outside is rusted, the inner panel is garbage too. Cutting out both sections, welding in new tin, grinding, doing everthing twice, really bites it. I really, really detest it because there's so many 1/2 day inexpensive alternatives.
But I do it.

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I understand your frustration! I've been working on this for about a month now. the other day I was thinking "man, it'll be a shame to cover up all this work so no one will ever see it!

you can see the fresh metal compared to replaced metal because the fresh is still silver, the original turned black from the rust converter.

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I HATE doing rear quarters because if the outside is rusted, the inner panel is garbage too. Cutting out both sections, welding in new tin, grinding, doing everthing twice, really bites it. I really, really detest it because there's so many 1/2 day inexpensive alternatives.
But I do it.

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I understand your frustration! I've been working on this for about a month now. the other day I was thinking "man, it'll be a shame to cover up all this work so no one will ever see it!

I had these same feelings, actually I've been working on the rear frame rails, rear frame brace, rocker corners, outer wells,etc, for about a year and a half, and my neighbors stop by and say," wow not much progress", they don't understand all the work that goes on behind the scenes. I guess we can still climb up inside the wells, and look behind the quarters from inside, and appreciate all the work we've done when its all done.Just got past this same repair, good luck.

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That reminds me, there's that body panel glue that the shops use now. I understand it holds like mad. With that I should be able to cut some patch metal and just glue it to the backside of the rust holes areas. That might just be the ticket. I had thought about doing that originally, but it slipped my mind.

Thoughts on that approach?

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*sigh* yes, just another bandaid. There really is no easy way to do it right. Welding up pinholes is fine, but that only works if the surrounding metal is decent. If you have small areas that are pitted and weak with multiple pinholes, you need to cut it out and weld in a small patch panel.

Depending on the amount of rust repair required, I would always prefer to repair original quarters over new skins or new full quarters.

I will quit posting on this thread; pretty sure you know my opinion by now!

good luck,

Dave

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I think I'll be trying to weld the holes...

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70cuda383, nice job on the wheel lip. What kind of rust converter are you using? How do you think it works?

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Thanks. it definitely was a lot of welding and a lot of grinding. it would have been nice to have a wheel, then I could have maybe tried to fabricate the entire outer section with all those compound curves, instead of making so many small patches welded together.

but...in the end, whatever works. the money spent on an english wheel could be spent on car parts! I'm not going into business, or planning on doing more than 1 car. as it is now, I've got my reg cab Dakota with a 360 and a 5 spd, lowered sport suspension, and it's a total blast to drive...I'll have my Cuda once it's done, my wife is an only child, so she'll be inheriting her father's restored 69 mach 1 Mustang eventually (at the rate I'm going, probably before I get my Cuda done!! ) some day I'll inherit my dad's street van...I don't see myself having the time/space to do another car!

--or desire!! this is a ton of nasty, dirty, sweaty, bloody work!


oh, and to answer your question, the rust converter I used was Purple Power rust converter. comes in a quart sized bottle for about $6. I poured it into an empty windex bottle, and sprayed it on. worked like a charm.

I then covered everything with the rust encapsulater Zero Rust from Resto Rick.

as I'm welding panels back on now, the heat is making the fresh Zero Rust paint lift a little, but once everything is cool, I'll hit it again with some paint and let it sit. eventually this paint will be so hard that nothing will make it lift!