Rusty Engine Bay Fix Up

[stevestevesteve]

Alright got paid and i started on fixing some ugly spots on the shock towers and under the power steering reservoir. pictures are like a week old and picture of the bubbly rust on the shock tower is from when i bought the car. before i started the paint was all off (crapy dealer fix) so i sanded, coated the tower with the aluminum rustoleum paint. then sanded again and painted over and over again. that i bondo'd over the thing and sanded some more. last 2 days i have been spraying on lots of light coats of the paint to smoothen the surface out and to make sure it stops the rust. i tried to keep one of those factory spot weld holes so it would look like no one messed with the towers.

As i did this i decided to take off my side skirts and clean under there. lots and lots of dirt but i only got one pic of the drivers side but it looked the same on all the other panels. i scrubbed, waxed, and cleaned under them, and then got some thick double sided tape and resealed everything. only rust was the usual spot in front of the rear wheels. but i got the chance to weld on some metal and patch/sand/paint the hole. (only passenger side had a half dollar size hole)

here is my progress as of about 5 min ago. i think it looks awesome considering im 16 and i did this in my parents 2 car garage. if you guys have any ideas on anything post em up.

eh... i gotta do some final sanding to get the overspray off of some of the stuff....

my setup! sams club icee FTW!

 

[lacroixdp]

That's an exceptional job cleaning up that rust! You're definitely doing the smart thing by getting it when it's not bad.

 

[Fabian]

wow thats a really good looking job you did. The only rust I have been able to find on my car is on the same strut tower as yours. But the guy that had my car before me just chipped it off completely so now there's a hole about 2"x2" and I'm a little scared to try and take car of it myself. So I'm getting my buddy who's a body pro to fix it for me

 

[mosul210]

Looks. Smart job getting to it before it becomes a bigger problem

 

[mosul210]

Looks Good. Smart job getting to it before it becomes a bigger problem

 

[Aznspice27]

yeah when i bought my car i had bubbly spots on my left strut tower... after 3 months in it turned into a hole the size of my fist and i can see straight through to the shock... body shop guy quoted me at 250 to fix it... shoulda done it before it got that bad

 

[turboAWDfanatic]

Bad thing about rust is even if you only see a few bubbles coming though the paint in an area the size of a quarter, it means there's rust on the back side of the metal about the size of your head. =\ Surface rust, on the other hand, is easy to take care of when it's small. It's hard to tell in the first pic, is that surface rust or bubbles from the other side?

 

[stevestevesteve]

looks like it *used* to be a pin hole rusted thru. but someone spot welded some metal into the hole only on top. and after a wisconsin winter the salt went in the wheel well went thru the under side of the weld and rusted around it. so as of right now i am fixing the top and once i get my new tires i will be filling, spraying, sanding, filling, and truckbead coating ALL the wheel wells.

 

[stevestevesteve]

UPDATE: after applying the facotry color paint, i layed it on a little to but thick and it all wrinkled.... so i have to wait for it to dry and i will sand the wrinkles down and paint it with VERY light coats.