Rusty wings? (Fenders)

51MAN · Post by **51MAN** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:17 am

Does rust down the rear edge (Near door) of a front wing spell disaster for the inner and A pillar? or is it just the wing to worry about??

May have found a good car, but one wing is rusty here and the other is bubbling..

ubercrap · Post by **ubercrap** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 10:58 am

Hmmm...since these cars don't have plastic inner fender liners, you should be able to take a flashlight and see quite a bit of the areas you are worried about, maybe poke around if you can jack up the car. I wouldn't say that rusty lower fenders necessarily means hidden rusty inners, but it can happen, of course. My '73 sedan has a hole in the inner driver side fender well with none on the outside on the lower fender itself. The battery tray area and C pillars are fine, but the front left corner of the driver side floor is also rusted through. These might be from a leaky windshield seal. This is quite different from my '74 sedans, which have rusty C pillars, spare tire wells, battery tray areas, rockers, and lower front fenders, but the inner fenders seem OK.

raygreenwood · Post by **raygreenwood** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:00 pm

There are certain problems that are common to 411/412...in the rust arena. There can be slight rusting inside of the fenders at the bottom, toward the door end of teh front fenders. This is because mud collects here. Generally in about half the cases, you may find that there are minor rust throughs to the inner body. Since most of those are covered from inside view by the carpet and the cover plates at the bottom of the A pillar...simply remove the rust with muriatic acid...rinse....allow it to surface rust over...then treat with phosphoric acid. It will never rust again. Then....weld up the holes. Even if you are a crude welder, after you undercoat the outside then re-install the carpet inside..no one will be wiser.

Now...the fenders themselves have different issues. Minor rust pin holes...can be derusted the same way as above. After fully stripping the fender...then braze or weld up these pinholes.

But...on the right hand side front fender, a common problem is that the rear edge of the fender....closest to the door...gets rust inside of the rolled edge. This is caused by the 14mm vent line on the filler neck leaking chronically. This dissolves the undercoating along that seam allowing rust to happen from the inside out. It runs in a straight bubbling line down the fender on the right hand side right in front of the door..

You need to clean all rust away and probably ground out the rolled area. Use acid to get it all dissolved. Then...unless you are a pro with a tig welder...have that area patched at a proffesional shop to save the fender. Ray

51MAN · Post by **51MAN** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:28 am

Cheers
The car is 600km away and didnt want a wasted trip..
The rust runs down the wing from the top to the bottom on the wing edge near the right hand door..
My concern is lots of rust on the A pillar.. My wife would go nuts at a nother "project"... as I have enough already...
My welding skills are going to get some practice on my Syncro doka "vanagon".. as a bad repair some years ago has shown itself.. in the lower B pillar..

WHen I am home next I will post a couple of pics.. see what you guys think.. the rest of the car is in good cond from the pics I have been given..

ubercrap · Post by **ubercrap** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:41 am

Hmm... sounds like the leaky vent line thing that Ray described. I would be surprised if the car had structural rust in the lower A pillar section, as this section is pretty beefy looking, but certainly the inner fender well can rust through as I found out. You never, know, though.

raygreenwood · Post by **raygreenwood** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 3:50 pm

If its the standard rust from teh vent line leak....teh A-pillar is usually not touched by the rust. The bulkhead you see when you look under the fender...is actually part of the fender. It is teh fender that is generally rusting and not its attaching point on the car. Ray

51MAN · Post by **51MAN** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 1:50 am

Cheers
in the right footwell all seems to be good.. from the one pic i have..
Ray, hope you dont mind, i have forwarded a picture to your mail addy.. I cant do anything with it from here at work....

I can forward a couple of others if you are interested and want to post them here..

Does the front wing bolt on/off?

oorwullie · Post by **oorwullie** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 2:22 am

here's a few pics for anyone who's interested. if it remains unsold and 51man doesn't get down here by the middle of january it'll be getting advertised.

the underside is just as clean apart from a few spiderswebs.

51MAN · Post by **51MAN** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:14 am

Cheers Dave

Yep underside is dreadfull... must be 5 or 6 spiders under there...

I better make my mind up sharpish then.. or should that be my wifes mind..

(I think she is coming round to the idea..

)

But I dare not go for it without her approval....

oorwullie · Post by **oorwullie** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:46 am

best bring the whole family then si!

raygreenwood · Post by **raygreenwood** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 6:53 am

Yep.....that rust line is caused by the filler vent hose leaking. There is a 90%chance that there is little or no rust on the actual body of the car underneath it. Just a trashed fender.
The minor rust caused under the flkoormats comes from several locations of leakage. (1) Leaking widshield gasket corners (2) Leaking seal around teh gas flap cable (3) Screw holes put into teh fender well underneath the carpet...by unscrupulous dealers installing speakers and air conditioning lines (4) Water getting under the floor mats from snow and rain.

Tear out the tar boards. You usually find small pinholing around teh edges of teh tarboards. Most of this..can be de-rusted with acid and neutralized with phosphoric acid. Then if they are just pinholes...seal them with 25 year acrylic urethane and be done with it. Since this area is not especially structural you can either weld or rivet in small sections of plate....seal them and coat over it...and be done. Ray

oorwullie · Post by **oorwullie** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 1:20 am

ray, there's no holes,pin or otherwise in this floor!

ubercrap · Post by **ubercrap** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 7:16 am

That car looks like it is in incredible condition aside from the fender. Is that original paint?

oorwullie · Post by **oorwullie** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:45 am

surely is nice! i doubt if you'll find an original car in this shape anywhere. i'm not entirely sure about the paint being all original but it probably is. about 90k miles from new and looked after in the proper swiss manner.

Jan Peter de geus · Post by **Jan Peter de geus** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 5:13 am

That sure is a very good looking car! Just get yourself a new (difficult) or good used fender, have it painted and you're done! Repairing the damage on the fender on the pictures is probably more expensive (labour) then getting a good used or even a new one. I see the car is an LS, i.e. high compression 85 HP 1800cc with dual carbs, '74 model year.

Ray, I want to challenge your fuel filler vent hose theory; I had similar bad rust on the left side fender (and a smaller bit on the right side as well). In my opinion this is caused by dirt and moist trapped in the flange between the fender skin and the section that is welded square to the skin just in front of the A pillar location. From factory this seam is sealed very well, however, with age the sealing material cracks and the moist spreads behind the sealant. Another spot for (rust) trouble is the edge of the fender near the door where the skin is folded to form a flange. This also traps moist.

Simon, good luck with the car (provided you buy it). Cheers, Jan Peter