Lets's talk Corrosion, a.k.a. Rust!

[kenh]

Iowa and Minnesota. Don't even think about a "rust free" truck unless it has NEVER seen a snow covered road. Most look like the photo posted by stutaeng.

Ken

 

[thinger2]

When I was young, back in the later parts of the last century

I worked in the auto body and boat repair business.
In this part of the country, boat repair is a very seasonal business.
Through spring summer and fall, you work like crazy.
Sometimes for the entire 4 to 5 months.
Then it rains and it all stops dead.
That is when your girlfriend the bartender gets all screwy about bills and rent and **** like that.
And is all pissed off because you are living next to the bar and her dog has a bar tab she has to pay
So you go grind some Bondo and get in some quality garage band jams.
But then, sometimes we get deep damn freeze.
And the boats sink because nobody winterized them, and the cars all crash because well,....
Seattle.
And you are back to work.
And that is why that first awesome album never gets put out.

 

[F4U-1A]

In 4 months my bitching will change from snow and cold to ******* biting Blackflies. Country living. Had a **** hound who loved my home brew, bet she could run a bar tab.

 

[scottydl]

I got lucky with my 95 Suburban, it was nearly rust-free when I bought it... almost unheard of since it was a Michigan/Indiana truck and I live in Illinois. But the original owner had it rustproofed and undercoated for its first 10 years (at least) at Ziebart. The kind of treatment where they spray a solution through small holes INTO the actual door shells anually, in addition to layers and layers of thick black undercoating on absolutely every part of the undercarriage. That stuff works! No rust anywhere in those areas.

However when I sold it this past October after 5+ years, a bit of surface corrosion had developed above the tailpipe from exhaust moisture... and I wanted to repair so I could sell the truck as "rust free" for the most part, since the doors/frame/underbody were still in awesome condition. I figured it would be a little sand & rattle can repair, until I sand-wheeled the area and the surface under the paint started falling off in rust chunks! Ended up with a fist-sized hole and a few smaller spots, but thanks to a lot of patience and ChrisFix's body/rust repair video (and a couple others on Youtube) I got it back to good shape. Not professional, but pretty darn good IMO considering I had never done any body work before this. Some of the progress pics I took:

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[Vikingdude]

That repair looks great. Nice job! Too many people are scared of amature body work.

 

[Supercharged111]

That repair looks great. Nice job! Too many people are scared of amature body work.

That's because some of us really suck at it!

 

[scottydl]

Like I said, I'd never even considered it before. But turns out its really doable if you have some time and patience. If you mess it up, the area can always be sanded/stripped back down and tried again. I got super lucky with paint color, already had a can of white sitting around that was a really close match to original. Then I sprayed a few layers of clearcoat over it.

If you ran your hand over my repair or looked at it real closely, you'd still feel/see some of the small flaws in the body filler that I did not sand and shape perfectly. But I wasn't too concerned about small details in my case.

 

[Kevco2]

The bane of my existence! I can feel my truck crying as Fall comes to an end every year and the salt monster comes back for another bite.
But after seeing how bad those rockers, or yet lack there of, I feel my truck is actually still pretty sturdy considering

 

[Supercharged111]

Like I said, I'd never even considered it before. But turns out its really doable if you have some time and patience. If you mess it up, the area can always be sanded/stripped back down and tried again. I got super lucky with paint color, already had a can of white sitting around that was a really close match to original. Then I sprayed a few layers of clearcoat over it.

If you ran your hand over my repair or looked at it real closely, you'd still feel/see some of the small flaws in the body filler that I did not sand and shape perfectly. But I wasn't too concerned about small details in my case.

I could probably do that good of a job, I just can't get the hang of feathering it out to where there are no edges. I tried on my Crown Vic and every time I covered my repairs with primer you could see every bondo spot.

 

[thinger2]

Yep. The first car I ever tried to block out was a vw bug.
Hard damn cars to learn on which is why Dad picked that one for me.
Nothing but curves. Not a flat spot on a bug.
Bondo it, sand it all off, crap.
bondo it, sand it all off, crap.
God I hate those cars