Driveway rust repair

[Livinalittle]

I usually Krown my truck every other year but 8 years of living in Ontario still takes it’s toll.
I’m not sure if anyone will be interested in this, but if it helps one guy out who’s worried about tackling it himself, I’m good with that.

Every summer I usually have a couple spots to repair. The neighbours always cringe when they hear me grinding the truck down to bare metal, but they’re always surprised with the end result. So here’s some pics of my most recent repair.

If you’re a body man by trade go easy on me.

Here’s the damage:




Passenger front door, was repaired once already about 2 years ago. There’s a nice body line that makes this one easy to blend.


Passenger side rear wheel: Unfortunately a spot weld started rusting around year 4 so this has also been previously repaired. Not so lucky with the body lines so I’ll just try and keep it small.


Drivers side rear wheel. Also repaired once before.


Some of the products I’ll be using. Minus the body filler.

 

[Noneck]

Way to stay on top of it. I restore cars as a hobby. You may want to consider some epoxy primer. I repaired some similar spots on my neighbor's Dakota and had some SPI epoxy for my project laying around. I went down to bare metal and applied the epoxy with a little flux brush and then put a little fender chrome trim over it. Did it like 3 years ago and it was still holding tough when he traded the truck a month ago. You want a 2 part epoxy primer not the junk you buy in a rattle can. Hope this helps. We are in Pennsylvania and get our fair share of snow and salt.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[Livinalittle]

I usually mask, then prep and if the tape gets too chewed up I’ll re mask. Trying to blend with clear doesn't work very well for driveway jobs, you’re usually just left with two lines instead of one.


I just use news paper, I find this is the easiest way to attach large sections. Tape all seams otherwise overspray will find a way through and you will have to clay bar it off when you’re done.








Also going over the passenger side rocker panel. There’s no rust my wife just drags her feet lol

 

[Livinalittle]

Still more masking....this part sucks






I’ll usually scuff the entire masked off area first with either 300ish grit sandpaper or red scotch brite. Once all the orange peel is off (next post) I’ll start digging a little deeper with the air grinder.


Fibre glass pens are good for getting into tight spots. If you don’t get all the clear coat off the paint will start to peel here.


Rust turned into holes unfortunately. I used a pick and some wire brush to scrape as much as I could. Don’t worry about being gentle.

 

[Livinalittle]

So much prep..


An example of orange peel. If you see shiny, that means there’s still more clear coat to sand off.


Drivers side holes....I could cover it up with fender flares but I find they just trap moisture and cause the rot to spread even faster.


Passenger side spot weld that rusted through. You can see the body filler where it was repaired before. Just dig out as much rust as possible.

This year I attempted to weld the hole shut but even with my small flux welder the steel is so thin it just blew through. If I had oxy acetylene than maybe I could fill it, but I think I’ll just cut and replace this section in the next couple years.


I used 40 grit inside the door. The pinch weld traps a lot of moisture. Also if you use Krown or other oil coating, it’s a good idea to make sure the drain holes at the bottom of your doors are clear.


If you see areas that will require body filler I would start with them. Apply in thin coats and let dry and just build it up slowly. Also it shrinks when it dries so add more and sand it down.

 

[Livinalittle]

If you’re priming and painting you’re good to sand with 300 grit or red scotch brite. If you’re just applying clear coat I would use 600 grit or finer, or grey scotch brite. Finally, before you start painting make sure to wipe everything down the degreaser, I find Goo-gone does the trick.




I started with two thin coats of Rust Oleum’s anti rust primer this year followed by two coats of the duplicolor brand sandable primer. After the 4 coats I did a very gentle sanding with 600 grit followed by one more generous coat. Just follow the directions on the can for time between coats and between painting.


Unfortunately I got a bad batch of paint....I won’t post the photos but I had to prep all surfaces a second time. You can see that it dried very dull and did not adhere to the primer. Canadian Tire gave me a new can of paint at no cost....but it was another 5 hours of work

 

[Livinalittle]

After a couple coats of clear, here’s the final product.


My kiddo wouldn’t let me take the pic if she couldn’t be in it lol









obviously if you know where to look you’re going to see the repairs. At first glance the average joe doesn’t notice a thing and I’m good with that.

Sorry for all the posts/pics lol

 

[Livinalittle]

Last pic. The driveway view.

 

[pacofortacos]

Looks good and at 100 kph it will look perfect

We did my son's 03 Jeep GC a few years ago, down to metal, treat inside and out with POR 15, bit of fiberglass, primer, more POR 15, then topcoat. Still perfect after several years now.
Sits outside all the time in Western PA.

 

[PoMansRam]

Looks great! That's a lot of work, but you saved yourself a ton of money and your job will likely last as long as an average shop job would.

What year is your Ram? Looks too young for this type of swiss cheese.

 

[Livinalittle]

Looks great! That's a lot of work, but you saved yourself a ton of money and your job will likely last as long as an average shop job would.

What year is your Ram? Looks too young for this type of swiss cheese.

It’s a 2013

 

[daveray9]

This looks awesome, wish you could do mine. Great work!