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rusting rear and fron fender and wells / 1/4 pannels


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Maybe I should post a picture of the area I'm talking about.

 

What would be the best way to cut it out? And where are the spot wields at?

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/SubaruWRX/Photos/IMAG0848_zpse98cfa77.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/SubaruWRX/Photos/IMAG0849_zps8b21ea1d.jpg

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That's called the dog leg to body techs, lift off the rubber strip around it and look underneath and you will see a series of spot welds, those attach the 1/4 panel to the wheel well. If you remove the striker for the door latch there will be three or four spot welds as well. Yo gave to remove the rear bumper and finisher under the light and you can see the welds that attach the panel to the rear body. The other welds in the rear door opening are under the kick panel. Remove the kick panel and yo can see where it is sectional.

 

It is possible to section it from the rocker panel and you might be able to section it above the striker and make it look ok if you are not afraid of bondo work. Sectioning it is optimum because if you choose to replace the whole quarter panel you would have to remove the quarter glass and gas fill tube inner stiffener..m just basing all of this on prior experience with body work I have not had to replace mine or any other subarus of these years but there is a median among car manufacturers and the international standards organization (ISO) for the same procedures.

 

If you do this work keep in mind that there will be use of seam sealers and NVH foams

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What I was going to do was make a pretty square cut out of that peice and do the same for the replacement dog leg and wield it back into place, I know where those spot wields are I remember seeing them when taking out the carpet.
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That's cool, glad your doing it yourself, that would be over a $1k at a body shop...you shouldn't have a hard time welding it up, underneath that flange its got a backing kinda like a pinch weld underneath the car where you put your jack to lift the car up. Welding on 40A is not the funnest, just be quick and tack it an few places it doesn't need to be fully welded (even though fully welded and ground is ideal).

There was mention of weldable primer, use that stuff liberally its gold.

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I see now about your welder. The best thing about metal is if you cut a piece to short you can just weld it but with wood your screwed. LOL. Ever since I got my Mig I've done so many projects, not only with cars but I've made a set of cool bumpers for my Arctic Cat Atv among other stuff. They are worth the investment for sure. I want to buy a nice TIG for stainless and aluminum work.
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well a welder is good but the cheap welders are only between like 80-100A so that's way too much for body sheet metal.. I'm looking at a hobart which is about $400 more then the one I have and plus I can hook up with gas if I want.
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Are you guys talking about like a 240 single phase welder, go to lowes and buy a Lincoln electric 110 unit they start at 20amps of heat, plus you don't have to be a welder to run a wire feeder. I just bought one for home projects for 580 bucks, you can run flux-cored wire and it came with a regulator for gas/wire welding.
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Before MIG welding was developed body shops were either brazing panels with copper or brass or lead with butane or oxy-acetylene. There are still some old school shops that will use lead or a lead alternative since its carcinogenic.
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That's true, toyota and lexus are putting they're cars together like that, some are using a plastic or urethane sheet between the flanges to prevent wind flutter and a better rust seal. Very little spot welding and use of aluminum is becoming bigger for car manufacturers.
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Happening to my subie as well. Currently cutting the rust out and evaluating what kind of patch to use. This is driver's side, and after some cutting today I discovered that the rust extends all the way to the joint where the rear fender hits the rocker panel. Passenger side not as bad.

IMG420.thumb.jpg.52436b17e534c6c20185d3b8e8904d77.jpg

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  • 10 months later...
That's cool, glad your doing it yourself, that would be over a $1k at a body shop...you shouldn't have a hard time welding it up, underneath that flange its got a backing kinda like a pinch weld underneath the car where you put your jack to lift the car up. Welding on 40A is not the funnest, just be quick and tack it an few places it doesn't need to be fully welded (even though fully welded and ground is ideal).

There was mention of weldable primer, use that stuff liberally its gold.

 

 

damn still haven't did this yet and with all the salt they put down this year I see some bubbles on the quarter panels but my thing is to do the doglegs first.. The wielder I will get has a range from 39-140A I understand using gas will get a cleaner wield but how messy would flux core be?

 

I'm still a bit confused on how to section cut that dogleg, I assume that black part is part for the door striker and I don't want to mess with it's alignment. I want to do this before summer because I want to get my car painted.

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For years I've pop-riveted new sheet metal over the rust holes. It will be years before it will rust through again (I've used galvanized heating duct metal). Luckily my '98 (A Maryland car has no rust) but my '05 Impreza from northern PA has a small spot behind each rear fender that I'll need to tend to . Also the front sub frame rusted out so I found another on Ebay to replace it. hate road salt (growing up in New York state with plenty of rusted cars there)
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If you take off all the plastic trim panels you can see the rest of the section that is spot welded to the floor and rocker panels. Thing is that just the dog leg isn't a sectional part, it is part of the quarter panel and is also welded into the rear body and rear light pockets.
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The rubber on your rear wheel wells is good protection I would take it off and sand it down prime paint and put it back. If you remove them rust will. one faster. I've had mine off a year and my repair job is skewed and I need to re do it

 

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Not true at all, if they are initially clean then you have no problems. That trap holds water in a very critical spot with road grime and salt. The damage done to remove it is lesser than what it's protecting it from. You ever see restored classics with all those rubber type protectors on? Rarely. Its because of the same concept

 

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