This Landcruiser came to me with the windshield and liftgate glass removed (and went home that way, too). It was obvious to the owner that naval jelly and a wire wheel wasn't going to cut it after removing the glass, so he brought it to the shop I work at.There are much worse cases of rust out there, but this one was missing part of the windshield mounting flange, so it was definitely time for a fix. Apparently there weren't many left hand drive diesel ones made in 1990, and this one is in nice condition otherwise.
Heres how it looked: (click pictures to enlarge)
Luckily the rust had not attacked the inner panel, so with proper caution, I was able to make the repair without removing the dash. That would have been a huge expensive project! The liftgate wasn't rusted through but was badly pitted. These pics are after the dash area has been protected with several layers of masking tape, then masking paper, then duct tape, then cardboard sealed with duct tape and moistened with a spray bottle, then a welding curtain sealed with tape. May sound like overkill, but I was working very close to the interior, and experience has shown this method to provide good protection against welding sparks. The hood was given the same treatment but with a layer of plastic foam padding rather than the wet cardboard, and the battery was disconnected at the ground terminal before welding.
The dark stuff is Eastwood's rust converter. It worked very well. I cleaned the metal first, with a 3M XT Clean n Strip disc, then poked around with a sharp punch to open up any weak rust pitted spots, then brushed on the converter per the instructions.
These pics show it prepared for welding, and two flange patches laying in place. I ground off the rust converter where I needed to weld, then carefully closed everything up with a mig welder. Then, using a 1/8" thick cutoff wheel and 40 grit on a 5" grinder, I smoothed out all the welds. It was time consuming, tedious, and in an awkward spot!
I finished that work out with a coat of Evercoat's Metal Glaze ... the liftgate got the same treatment, to fill pits.
Then it was primer time. DuPont urethane primer surfacer, three coats.
Heres the finished product after paint- glad to have been able to keep it simple. There were some large hole plugs in the firewall (for wiper linkage access) and thru those, I was able to coat the backside of the repair with epoxy primer using a small disposable acid brush for corrosion protection.
Hope is not lost when you see rust. Just about anything metal can be fixed!
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