Bubbling Paint on the A Pillar (and other assorted rust bubbles)

For a while I’ve been casting sidelong glances at the top of my a pillar. Paint there is sort of bubbling. A bit.

Try not to think about it because its so horrible. What if whole a-pillar is just a giant bar of rust? Is that a fatal problem?

Today I got out the step ladder and went at that rust bubble with a screwdriver.

I didn’t take a picture before I started but it was just blue paint that had bubbled a bit. But it was also a bit soft to the fingers. So it was paint over something that wasn’t solid.

I scratched the paint off with a flathead screwdriver, then kept scratching at all the softness, the bubbling brown rust, until I’d explored the limits of the badness.

Unfortunately the rust extended to under the windshield seal, which means I can’t fix it with the mig unless I remove the windshield.

Here is right after I started to scratch:

After I’d scratched and ground it clean, then painted with ZeroRust.

I drove the car to my local awsome glass shop. They said… um… this isn’t exactly a… ‘rotisserie restoration’… the windshield will probably break if we remove it… prolly you should put in a temp fix and do the welding when the windshield needs replacement.

Just as I got home my wife got home from her moms, she handed me a half used pack of JBWeld Steel Stick. Age Unknown…

So I tore off a chunk, worked it for a minute and then jammed it in the rust hole, pressed it way up into the hole using a screwdriver. Kept pushing until it was jammed hard with whatever epoxy that is. My goal was to press out any voids.

When I was done it looked like an old hornets nest.

Then nearby were some other small bubbles in the paint… sure enough these were hidden rust holes. I gave it the same treatment except I could grind all the metal clean with my angle grinder, cleaned the underneath as well as I could, then hosed it down with some coats of zinc paint. And then I repeated that work on 2 other rust holes.

After a few hours the zinc was dry enough to weld. Because there was no seal nearby I filled the holes with zaps from the mig welder. Then grind the welds down. Pretty nice.

The main thing is to give it two small zaps, then wait until the metal is warm to the touch. Generally a minute between zaps. This keeps the heat way down, avoids warping the metal or catching the car on fyre.

Just starting to weld up a larger hole. Lots of time to take pictures while waiting for the metal to cool…

Right before I close up the welds with the final blobs I give the hole a generous blast of zinc paint. Maybe help to seal up the backside of the new metal.

Finally grind the welds down most of the way, then paint with VHT Epoxy Suspension Paint. To cover the welds I used 4 very light coats with 10 minutes between. The jbweld was thirsty though, it took 3 heavy coats, just kept sucking up the paint, which I think is fine.

Started raining last night.

I am wondering how to help reseal that windshield rubber until that distant day when the windshield comes out. Supposed to use urethane glue to hold rubber onto the metal and glass…

Tail Repair, Tailgate

Leaning into the back of the truck I put some pressure on the tailgate and noticed it creaking. Bounced it a bit with my weight and the entire bottom seam was flexing. The entire bottom seam was rusted out.

That cannot stand!

First I ground away all the bad metal. And the sealant. And then it was really true that there was no bottom seam at all.

I welded in a bunch of tiny scrap pieces. Went well, took a few hours.

Then noticed nasty stuff on the outside. Oh well, might as well fix it.

Finally back on the truck with mismatched paint:

Whhaaaa! A Hefty Pair of those Nasty Rocker Panel Ends

Can’t fit THAT on the album cover.

I was going to ignore the rocker perforation but wife had an opinion this once… “Well… You can’t leave it like that.”

Uh… honey? I’m tired? I feel like I’m getting done with this welding stuff. This manual labor is starting to make me hurt.

Ok, well we’ll see I guess.

I started on the passenger side at about 2pm after welding all morning. And somehow everything went right. Got it done in about 2.5 hours. Pretty fast I think.

Yeah, in hindsite this does look aweful. But no water into the cabin. How bad can that be?

Ground away all the bad metal and realized there was enough good metal that I could do this bottom part with a single piece. I went with the tried and true “weld some of it in, then hammer and grind it to fit” technique. And that worked great just this once.

I was pretty happy with how quickly that came together. So the next day I plan to zap the driver’s side, which has slightly worse rust:

Well it turned out there were some significant differences. Enough metal had gone by-by that I had to make multiple complex pieces. And that took a lot of time. The upper bit went well but it was a u-shaped piece that needed to curve in 2 dimensions. I fit the piece and then cut darts out of it so it could bend. This took 3 hours.

Then ground away the bad metal in the rocker. The backside and inside of the rocker are rusted and need to be cut away and replaced with new metal.

Here I had to make a pretty complex piece with a cereal box.

I mean look at that thing… and then folded, welded, folded again, welded more. Complicated. And this is just the end of the rocker tube.

Trace the piece on the sheet, then cut it out with jigsaw. Thank goodness I have that bosch jigsaw, best tool ever. Cuts like a damn laser.

Was tough going to weld that piece in. Not a lot of room for the torch. Welded the seam on the outside, then welded it on the inside.

Then I zapped the inside of the rocker as much as possible with zinc paint.

Then fold the panel shut and weld that seam. See what a complex shape that is! I’m impressed.

Then make the outer wheelwell lining.

Weld into place with darts, then hammer the tabs over and weld the seams.

Then grinding:

Yes, insanely strong.

This one side ended up taking all day.

 

A Yucky Little Hole Is Fixed

One of the land cruiser logo stud holes had rusted through an perforated all around. About a 2.5×2.5″ section.

This went really easy.

Im getting lots better about controlling the heat. Pretty much only do short tacks now. Let the weld cool before I put down another one.

I even checked from the back in bright sun and no pinholes. I chalk this up to my using more heat and hitting the metal in shorter bursts. Got better penetration, no pinholes. Awesome!

Lots More Welder-ing On That Truck

Have been really busy fixing rust.

First was the passenger side rear quarter panel. Its just that little bit of rust above the mud flap?

Well, I cut in a bit large in case I found anything interesting.

Yeah… that’s not good. I need to see better, get better access…

That is the wire that tells the car that the rear passenger door is open. It goes through a big giant piece of something yummy. Some rust stuff? Filler? JBWeld? I have no idea. I pryed it loose with a screwdriver and found the underside was in really great shape! But the wire was solidly embedded into it. I cut the wire and spliced in a new one.

Then got to work grinding away and replacing bad metal.

This job went much easier than the driver’s side because the quarter panel still had its base and back side. It was good to cut away a big area for access and I was able to weld the piece back in when I was done.

Again the 16g sheet makes for some really strong wheel well arches. I left the bad metal in place to use as a form, cut it away once it was time to weld in its replacement.

The final piece of wheel arch here was sort of tricky. Had to do some Vice Origami(tm). Was surprisingly difficult to get a piece curved in 2 directions and with funny angled sides. And I screwed it up a little.

See once its welded in there is a triangle gap. Darn!

That is the last time I’m freehanding a complex metal piece. Cereal box template from now on!

So I fill that triangle with a piece I had laying around:

Once its all snug and welded in place I grind the extra away. Simple!

That double-curved boxed section is incredibly solid. Like wow.

Then weld in a new piece and get to grinding.

And finally… I hit it with filler. Ouch!

Nope, this isn’t a pro job, that’s for sure.

But it is strong!