Door pillar rot

[jblueridge]

I am not sure how to address this rust. This is a joint between 2 panels.
Anyone have photos of the back side of this area?

 

[Behemoth60]

From ToyoDIY, this 'joint' appears to be part of:
61027-90K02 PILLAR SUB-ASSY, FRONT BODY, OUTER RH

That part is out of production. So.. you gotta fix what you got.
Having been working extensively on 'retro-moding' a BJ74 tub, I am having just replaced the rockers with a giant hunk of steel, I am pretty confident in saying that this part is spot welded to the inner panel.

Despite best efforts to seam seal these spot welded joints back in the 1980's, these joints are notorious for rusting. EVERY part I un-spot welded in my tub had surface rust along the entire joint surface.

Easy method.... Remove paint and rust from the outside. Apply rust converter. Apply 2K epoxy Primer. new top coat. On the inside, apply liberal quantities of cavity wax sealer. That should slow it down, but not fix it.

Hard method... Un-spot weld part. Fix part. Re-attach.

If you need to rebuild a part as the original is way to rusted, and don't have a lot of fancy tools, then Fitzee has you covered.... he has super-simple methods using basic hand tools and a mig welder tools to create replacement rusty parts. He is one of my YouTube favourites right now.

 

[Felde]

If the pillar is structural sound, still I'd go this way:
1. Remove outside rust with silicate wheel.
2. Treat seam / joint with Owatrol. It penetrates into the seam, between the layers, saturates the rust and eventually cures (but that takes some time) (actually I would use Oxiblock, which is a similar but imho superior product to Owatrol. But it's a German product and probably not available in your place)
3. Seam-seal the joint and coat.
4. Try to work your way into the cavity and apply a penetrating rust protector, e.g Fluidfilm or Mike Sanders.

I wouldn't use a rust converter here, as most rust converters do not penetrate well. It would only convert the upper section and eventually block any other product to penetrate any deeper. Underneath the red rusty party would go on..
Good Luck Ralf