I have those little "bubbles" of rust over my rear wheels, do i have to cut his all out and weld on a new piece? or is there another way of getting rid of it?
If those bubbles do not go all the way through the sheet metal, you can repair the area without cutting it out. If it looks like swiss cheese and you can see daylight through it, it's time for the torch. First you'll need to take the area down to bare metal using sandpaper, scotchbrite, or your angle grinder with a roloc disc. If the rust has caused pitting in the metal, you'll need to fill the pits in with a THIN coating of body filler. After the body filler dries, sand, prime and repaint. Most folks leave this type of repair to a body shop but it's really not too difficult provided you use the right materials. Sam
unfourtinly the rust does go all the way through..... is there any way of doing a repair w/o a torch? or am i just screwed
Yes, you can cut out the rusty portion with an air chisel or sawzall type tool. If you can't cut the metal out, you can grind all the rust off and fill the holes with bondo, but this is not recommended because this is not a lasting or professional repair.
cool, thanks. I've never done body work before, so I am a little nervous. I bought this Maverick for 2 reasons, first, cause I love mavericks, second, cause i want to learn more about working on cars. I just dont want to completly mess it up. But thanks again, I'll keep you posted
A pretty easy way I've found is to remove the paint around the rusted area, then use a cut off wheel (as long as the area is not too big), making sure to make nice straight cuts. Also, make sure your corners are nice and square. Then, take the piece you just cut out and use it as a template to make your patch. give yourself at least a quater inch extra around so you dont have to worry about coming up with too little metal. then you can either bevel the edge and lay it in from the back, or trim it to fit then buttweld it in. Either way works pretty good.
