Best way to tackle this rust spot on the wheel well near seat mount? (1 Viewer)

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Apr 17, 2019
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San Diego, CA
This weekend I started ripping out my old carpet to lay down some sound deadening and put in a new carpet kit, but when I removed the wheel well covers I noticed this.

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I decided to try grinding away some of the loose surface rust and it kept going. It looks like water came in from the outside of the wheel well along the top seam and then just sat in this pocket for a long time. I cleaned out the pocket as best I could and put some naval jelly in there to sit and while it does look better its still clearly has rust penetrating in the area and now it has a hole to the outside world from the grinding.

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Normally I would be for cutting out the rusted area and patching in a panel but with this being part of the seat mount and not easy access to a welder at the moment I am wondering how others might tackle this. A friend suggested just treating it with POR-15 and then sealing it up really well and bonding a small patch to cover up the hole from the inside.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated!
 
That is a super common rust area. You could remove the seat mount by drilling out the spot welds, fix with welding, then reinstall seat mount. The thing is, it will be impossible to chase and remove all the rust between the different layers unless you drill apart every body panel. The rust needs to be managed and inhibited. I don't like por 15, lots of people report the rust comes right through. It has no rust converting ability.

I would do the repair as I said, then slather rust converting paint over everywhere and let it go in the seams. Then coat with top coat. But leave some cracks not totally sealed up so you can then apply rust inhibiting oil to seep through all the gaps between the metal layers. And reapply it every year or two.
 
Just do what everybody else does with rust and just forget about it, and deal with it 10 years later when it’s 50x worse.
 
Just do what everybody else does with rust and just forget about it, and deal with it 10 years later when it’s 50x worse.
In the past - like decades ago, I discovered some rusty spots on my cruiser. I dug the crunchy rust out as well as I could with a little screwdriver, then soaked the wound in boiled linseed oil. I applied 3-4 coats over the course of a few weeks (cuz a coat takes about 5 days to set up) and 20 years later that spot was still rust free and the rust never grew.
Since linseed oil cures tacky, it naturally picks up dirt which actually makes the finish stronger.
It doesn’t look particularly nice - but it kills rust forever and never needs a re-application.
Something to consider in spots that you can’t see or don’t care how they’ll look.
 
That is a super common rust area. You could remove the seat mount by drilling out the spot welds, fix with welding, then reinstall seat mount. The thing is, it will be impossible to chase and remove all the rust between the different layers unless you drill apart every body panel. The rust needs to be managed and inhibited. I don't like por 15, lots of people report the rust comes right through. It has no rust converting ability.
Thanks for the reply, I had a feeling this has to be somewhat common and thought I had run across some threads about it but couldn't dig them up with search. Drilling out the spot welds to clean up both sides of the mount is a good idea.

It doesn’t look particularly nice - but it kills rust forever and never needs a re-application.
Something to consider in spots that you can’t see or don’t care how they’ll look.
I had not heard of linseed oil before, thanks for the tip! This was my initial thought as well, it will be covered up so doesn't have to be a pretty fix, just stopping the spread of the rust so it doesn't get worse.
 
In the past - like decades ago, I discovered some rusty spots on my cruiser. I dug the crunchy rust out as well as I could with a little screwdriver, then soaked the wound in boiled linseed oil. I applied 3-4 coats over the course of a few weeks (cuz a coat takes about 5 days to set up) and 20 years later that spot was still rust free and the rust never grew.
Since linseed oil cures tacky, it naturally picks up dirt which actually makes the finish stronger.
It doesn’t look particularly nice - but it kills rust forever and never needs a re-application.
Something to consider in spots that you can’t see or don’t care how they’ll look.
Wow! Good to know. My Cruiser is darn rusty. I need to learn how to do body work.

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