Well, I had a small section above my fender where the paint had bubbled and cracked. I wanted to fix it before winter came so two days ago I ground it all down. The inner fender lip had me a little worried that it wasn't just an outside-in rust, so I took a screwdriver to it last night and the area that looked pitted basically just popped through. So now what the hell am I left to do? Cut the inner fender, treat the inner surface of that outer skin, weld a patch panel in and body work it up?........freaking pride and joy coming apart at the seams.....literally.

Link to the Album in case the pictures don't work

 

weld those holes up and then grind smooth.

 

Crap Andrew that sucks, gotta love living in the northeast

 

DAMN!! That is a new body style truck!! Have never seen them rust there. I would drill out the spot welds from underneath there with an 8MM spot weld drill bit. Use a cut off wheel to cut past the rust. Keep the old piece you cut out to make a patch, clean out the rust real good and use a rust treatment acid like "GEM Rust Killer", spray some zinc weld through primer, put your patch back on and spot weld very slowly going back and forth to keep heat down. Bodywork and paint!

 

Billy, yeah, this sucks. allpro, 100k (just turned 100 this weekend) and all years were in NY or IL. Here's a pic I was able to take from inside the body, looks like the rust is creeping up 2-3" from the bottom of that lip. Since I don't have a welder and that seems to be the right way to do it, I'm going to at least have to take it somewhere to do that. Looks like most places are looking for about $230 for the body work, with the amount of work being slightly different. ONe place would just cut out the area where the holes are and patch (keeping the flangs that's corroded - I've now POR15'd the crap out of it. The other guy I talked to would cut that entire section out, 2-4" up from the lip, including the lip, and then woudl reshape a new piece. The reshaping of a new piece just has me a little worried that he would be able to get it to match the lines. Thoughts?

 

If he is decently good, body line shaping really is'nt that hard in small sections if at all.

 

doesnt gm have a lifetime rust warranty?? i think they do, not sure though

 

Haha you guys would of **** yourselves if you seen my truck before it got painted, you southern guys have it good, anyways it would probably cheaper and a better overall finish if you simply replace the fender? I dunno though

I beleive its only 8 years... could be wrong though, I know for a fact its not lifetime, I would of jumped on that

 

ahhh ok

 

I grew up in Illinois also, if I showed you pic's of my truck you would cringe. The rockers on both side have 3/4"x2-4" holes in it. The rear quarters have bubbles all along the top lip. It sucks. Heck, my '71 C10 has less rust on its 15 year old paint than my '00.

Adam