Not a view you see everyday. The jug in the background is behind the
rear bumper. There should be a wheelwell covering that hole.
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And here is the wheelwell, rust holes and all,
outside the car.
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The rust in the fender is visible now, as are
the patches already in place.
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This area is usually inaccessible, blocked by the inner wheelwell.
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The tailgate retractor mount area is badly rusted
and will need work to make sure it is safe. Normally this is hidden
inside the inner fender area, but we had to cut that away to fix rust.
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Kurt decided to replace the front fenders with doners from another vehicle.
They had some problems, but fewer than the Wagon's front fenders did.
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The doner fenders had some rust as well, so Kurt cut out the bad areas.
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Having done more than 1 car by this point, Kurt
started fabricating the replacement sheet metal.
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A small skim of putty will dress the patched fender
with ease.
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The headlight area had the usual rust. Normally,
this is fixed with a replacement cap.
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The doner headlight cap was removed - from Betsy's
original fender. Back in the '80's, the fender had been repaired with
a cap. It had been brazed in and had already been causing problems.
If we ever need to, we can still remove that cap, which is larger than
this cutout section, weld in a new cap, and reuse the fender.
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Back to fabricating the replacement panel. The
sandbag technique works well for compound corners.
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One replacement piece ready to be used.
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The replacement panel fits perfectly and looks
great.
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One of the bracket mounting points was too rusted
out to retain.
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The floorpan at the back of the rocker panel had
to be cut out and replaced before the wheelwell could be attached.
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Kurt fabricated the mounting edge.
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This is the gas tank fill pipe that is normally
all hidden within the driver rear wheelwell.
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Another view of the driver rear wheelwell area.
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The hinge mounting area for the tailgate has surface rust. However,
the bolts are rusted solid and will need to be drilled out, then tapped
back to complete the repair.
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The passenger hinge area isn't as bad as the driver
side.
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Stripping the driver side found the reason the
taillight doesn't fit well. A large shallow dent with a deeper area
indicates that the fender had been damaged, pushing the taillight area
in a bit.
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The driver side has similar problems with the
rear fender as the passenger side does.
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The door skin on the rear driver door will probably
need to be replaced and the triangle between the doors has to be completely
remade due to the rust. Even the driver door has damage that was hidden
under the older restro.
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Finally in July 2010 we were ready to start prepping
for the offbody. First step was to remove the stainless window trim.
A friend help Michelle and Christopher with this tedious task. The goal
is not to bend or damage anything.
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Underneath the window trim we found the expected
surface rust. Some spots were worse than others.
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The wrap around corner area wasn't as bad as expected.
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Before we could lift the body, Kurt wanted to
replace the rusted tailpan to help stabilize the body on the rotisserie.
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The tailpan was cut out and all the rust cleaned out.
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The rusted tailgate hinge mount points cleaned up better than anticipated.
The rusted bolts are still in place at this time.
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The new tailpan is waiting for installation.
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Clickos hold the tailpan in place for trial fitting.
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Then the whole area was coated in POR 15. The
bolts have been removed the holes tapped for new bolts.
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Close up of the coated hinge mounting area. POR 15 adheres to a rough
surface much better than a smooth surface, so the roughness was left
on purpose.
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