Years ago, a lot of "car guys" considered a rust hole repair as juststuffing a news-paper in the hole, smearing a mixed plastic substanceover it, and a close match of rattlecan paint to finish it off.Thankfully, the hobby has forced us to take better care of ourdisappearing autos, and rust repair has definitely been an issue. Rustis a corrosion product primarily consisting of hydrated iron oxide.Whether you live along the coastline, inland, in a large city or smallvillage, rust is a serious problem. All vehicles are subject to at leastone of the following factors: rain, snow, humidity, damp salty air, wetroads, the home garage, atmospheric chemicals, car washing, and so on.All of these considerably accelerate the corrosion of vehicles.Hopefully, everyone has taken the necessary steps to prevent rust fromoccurring on their Mopars, but let's say you have a hole that needsrepaired. Well, we're here to help.
We decided to have Muscle Car Restorations (MCR) in Chippewa Falls,Wisconsin, show us how they would repair a hole in the rearquarter-panel of a car. these guys are so good at what they do we areconfident (with proper care) the rust will not come back. You would needsome pretty extensive tools to properly handle a repair like this. Itemslike an air compressor, welder, and cutting tools are just thebeginning.
The first thing is to determine...
The first thing is to determine just how much rust the car has. Thispanel may look like it just has some small pin-holes, but the entirearea around the holes will need to be cut out to ensure only rust-freemetal is left.
Before any repairs can begin,...
Before any repairs can begin, you need to find out what needs to berepaired. Since the entire car is getting repainted, the body was mediablasted.
MCR first marks out where...
MCR first marks out where the cuts will be made. We use masking tape forour lines to ensure a straight line; if you use a marker, it may getrubbed off.
The cutting wheel follows...
The cutting wheel follows the tapeline. this is crucial for metalreplacement because the repair piece must fit snugly in the opening. MCRreplaces the cut-out metal with a new piece of metal cut to the exactsize of the opening. This eliminates an overlap of metal, and whensmoothed produces an invisible repair.