Note: These steps are embarrassing. This is not the right way to do this, this is what happens if someone believes advertisements for magic chemicals instead of just believing the professionals who say you need to replace with new metal. This does fix the main issue which is the puddle of water inside the car behind the wheelwell. I am intending to keep everything bombed with FluidFilm.
Yeah… so. Fuel gauge on dash not worky. Always shows E as in Empty. Previous owner says it’s just a matter of connecting the plug. There is in fact a plug inside the car above the driver’s side rear wheelwell – all virginal and ready to be Plug-Ed, and there’s a plug on the other side of the sheet metal right behind the driver’s rear wheel well. All that’s needed according to previous owner is to drill a hole for the wire to pass through.
Context From Inside the Vehicle: View from the inside looking forward at driver’s side rear wheelwell. The rectangular hole on the left had mud and water in the bottom. The leaking seam is at the forward edge on the right side (can’t see it in picture). The hole in the panel goes to a crossmember that bolts to the frame of the car. That sticky wet stuff is fluidfilm which never dries.
Clean It Out
I put on those safety goggles and under the car. Clean it out rear well. Hmm. Where should the hole be? The fact that there’s no hole here is a mystery. I can conclude that this portion of the car was rebuilt outta metal, and the last part was to drill the hole. I dig around on the inside and outside.
Lo! There be-eth a small puddle of water and a layer of fine mud about a cm thick. This car has a leak from the wheel well! Scrub out all the mud. The metal below is thankfully mint but there is a small amount of rust and crappy metal in a very hard to reach inside seam up against the wheelwell. I poke and prod with a screwdriver and manage to push a hole through the wheelwell. Its more like a seam.
The exact location is pretty difficult to photograph, I can barely get my hand in there. But being a hole I need to take care of it. Also need to get all that rust out before repairing. First I get my metal bristled brushes and go to town on everything loose. The area is so difficult to reach that I need to bend loose metal in the wheelwell in order to get access to the hole between the inside and outside, and in order to properly scrub and scrap everything. Get lots of cuts in my hands through the gloves since lots of sharp jagged edges.
I’m a little aggrieved at this hole. Clear that it’d need welding to repair correctly but the area is so congested that one would need to cut everything out and rebuild. Expensive and doesn’t seem so necessary. I’m going to go with the chemical fix, seal metal as well as I can, then bomb it all with FluidFilm.
De-grease
Since I had previously bombed the area with fluid film I need to use degreaser. I had Marine Clean from the local Auto Paint Supply, which is pretty strong toxic degreaser, spray it on, let it sit, clean it off, repeat.
De-Rust
Painted phosphoric acid (naval jelly) inside and out. Make a big ol mess of it. Let it sit and corrode all the rust for an hour, then wash with water. Repeat until metal is rust free.
Install that dang cable:
Install fuel sender cable. This is probably a mistake but I stuck the fuel sender cable through while the seam was open. Verified Fuel Gauge Works! Yay!
Fold Metal Back Where it belongs:
Next step I fold the remaining metal back where it belongs. I’m left with largish holes where I tore out bad metal.
Por-15
Metal is nice and crusty so I skip the metal-etch, I degrease again, then painted silver POR15 onto everything inside and out.
Close-up of the hole I made in my wheelwell. Fuel sender wire is visible through the hole. This big hole is not into the vehicle. There is a small hole into the vehicle if you reach through this hole and to the right.
Context: wheel well repair in context, its right behind the driver’s side rear wheel.
The other side of the wheel-well hole. Can’t see much. The little dab of silver is the bottom of the wheelwell panel with the hole seen in the other pictures. Note that CROSSMEMBER coming from the right. The inside of that sucker is accessed from inside the car. Through the portal I can see that the other side of that bold is rusty. Not a huge amount but it does need treatment.
JB Weld and patch the Seam
Next, before POR15 has fully cured I patch the seam with a strip of cut metal and JB Weld. I cut out a strip of galvanized steel, bend to fit over the seam, then cover one side with JB Weld and press into place. I use a cut down piece of wood to block the metal into place until the JB Weld can cure. This is probably really stupid thing to do instead of welding. Since I can’t hardly reach the seam with my fingers there’s no way to weld it without disassembling everything. Area is free of rust so maybe it will last? Live and learn. Probably best would have been to media blast everything to kingdom-come and do the repair with bare metal. Oh well. Live and learn. I can rebuild the entire wheelwell in the future.
POR15 over the JB Welded seam:
Coat of por15 over the jb welded seam. Little can goes a long way!
Epoxy Putty:
Cover seam on side and out with epoxy putty. Small tube of Quik-Steel. Knead in hands for a minute or so, then lay down epoxy putty. I jam it up against the far side of the seam from the outside, then cover the seam from the inside.
Soft putty in place to cover large hole in wheelwell. This is just to keep water in the wheelwell. There’s more goodness along the seam that you can’t see.
POR15 the epoxy putty.
Putty will absorb water so figure I should seal it with POR15. Bombs away.
Rustoleum Zinc Spray Paint:
Bomb everything with rustoleum zinc spray paint. This is a zinc primer.
Rustoleum Zinc Spray Primer over everything.
Wow, it sure looks worse in pictures than it does in real life. Well – at least the water isn’t getting into the car now. I really think next step I take a grinder and sand it all down so its smooth, then metal edge, recoat with por15, reprime.
Wow what a shit job I’ve done! Someone someday is going to curse me for it. I guess i wait and see if anything cracks loose.
CanadianBJ 