Re: [T3] Oh No! Rust!

[jesse and monica <jjmojo@blazenet.net>]

Hey all,
I just got done accessing the rust i found under my rear wheel wells.
Just as Jim stated the rust was indeed in the fronts of the rear wheel
wells. So i spend the whole weekend scraping off the undercoating and
just about all of the skin on my knuckles as well! Ouch!!! Funny how
after you do it a few times you start to get a tolerance to it so when
you do it again you just kind of go ouch a little and move on. Well
anyway, the rust on the passenger side was not bad at all. Just on
little spot that was rusted through. About the diameter of a pencil.
There was surface rust around it but the metal is still very strong. Now
on the drivers side there was an area about 4 inches long that had
little pin holes rusted through. The metal is still fairly strong, i
couldn't put my finder through it. Again there was surface rust in a few
places but nothing to bad. I plan on using por15 like holy water on the
rust, and then using the por15 epoxy putty to fill in the rust holes. I
don't thing the rust is bad enough to warrant cutting it out and welding
a new piece in. After i take care of the rust i guess i will undercoat
it again using tons of undercoating to make sure that water does not get
in ever again.
On a side note, when i removed the rear fenders to check for rust
underneath of them i found that a lot of the sealer that vw used to seal
the joints to keep out dirt for the cooling air is coming loose. Had
anyone had this problem? I guess i will just use por15 por patch to
replace the loose pieces. Is there something that i am not thinking of
that would work well for this? I don't want to have to do it again. I
plan on doing my front wheel wells when i am done the rear. It seems
that i have a leak where the antenna wire comes into the cabin. Also i
wanted to ask, As i had stated earlier, i found a little water in my
passenger side heater vent on the floor. I pulled the front fender loose
to look for rust but found none. Is there some where else that water can
get into the heater channels? Can it get in from the rear wheel well?
I plan on taking pictures of this whole process and putting them up on
my web page so anyone else going through this or thinking of doing it
will have a little visual for how i approached the situation, hopefully
helping clarify the whole routine. I will keep you posted when i get the
pictures up.
Later,
jesse
the skinless knuckled one

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