Yo, Today i replaced my inner fender well on the drivers side and let me tell you i was in for a surprise! Replacing it was no problem but i found a big problem, RUST!

The problem area is where the fender well and the mud flap bolt to the car. There is a nice crevice where dirt can build up. I must have scraped at least 2 dixie party cups of dirt out of each side. Under that was rust. I dont know about you (exp for sock and caj) but i haven't made it a habit to remove trip pieces to go looking for dirt. I was stunned on how much dirt was in there and hiding rust. I recommend that anyone who hasn't taken these pieces off ever to go look and see if you have the same dirt build up as I did.

Sprayed it down with some rust converter and a little bit of liquid undercoating (black tar like stuff) to help protect the area.

This is probably more of a desert or rural area issue.

Very easy to check, take off your mud flaps and look behind then and see if you have a big dirt bomb in there.

 

Yes, I had an unbelievable amount of dirt in there too, enough to fill a supermarket bag..

 

Yeah when I took my fenders off there was tons of dirt in there.

Seems like it gets in between the plastic fender well/ mudflap and the fender. I wonder if there is any way to block it from going in there?


A few other places that were rusted on mine were:

bumper brackets and where they go in the frame,

front bracket where the fender bolts on behind the bumper,

and up in front where the washer fluid bottle is mounted and the same location on the other side.

 

I can usually spray it out pretty well when washing the car, but there still is a good bit of stuff in there no matter what. Just took my fenders off the other day, and it wasn't rusted, fortunately.

 

I had one of my rear pods come off from my erebuni kits cause the prior owner didn't install it right. when i pulled it completely off it felt like it weighed a ton so i put it on a scale and weighed it, 33 lbs!!!!!. WTF? it was filled completely with sand which in some places of the FG pod was 4 inches deep. I haven't put it back on yet but when i cleaned it out it weighed roughly 5 lbs.

whenever I wash my car I head straight to the shop and use my 3ft. extension air gun and blow all crevices out. most detailers do this on their higher end detail jobs. 90 PSI dries stuff out really quickly plus breaks up what the spray gun didn't get in the first place. i've written down several areas that i will be filling with expanding foam just to get rid of these areas.

in the end, after washing your car, blow out ever crevice with a air gun.

 

Never though about using expanding foam in these locations, that was only what i found in the front fenders, i think the rear ones are more open.

 

I would suggest getting all the rust off of that spot. That rust converter stuff is just a cheap band aid. The rust will still grow, regardless of what you read on the side of the can, and then you'll have a bigger problem down the road. If it is underneath and not visible, I'd say take a grinder down there and take it to bare metal, THEN throw some sealer/primer and paint and any kind of undercoating (which , by the way, is a GREAT idea) on it and you will never have to worry whether that spot of rust magically converted or is still lurking and growing under there.

 

Well im in luck as i have my new 25 gal 4 hp compressor to run a sanding wheel now so i may just do that... any other places to look?h

 

I think you probably found the worst one. I noticed it when I took my mud flaps off and color matched them to the car. Tons of Dirt!! but thankfully, no rust to be found.

 

I live in the northeast...salty wet puddles in the winter... I really wish they would come up with something that does not eat away at cars for road treatment.