Body Rust: DIY Paint or Leave it

I have a 2019 SR5 with a small rust spot next to the bumper. I am considering sanding it, adding filler, and then painting this small section based on chrisfix’s videos but I wanted to hear from anyone that has tried this if it is even worth the trouble. I bought color matching paint but have no prior experience.

 

DIY. That's not small. It will get way worse if you leave it.

 

Bondo lasts a bit more than 5 years. Expect to redo the work then.

If it improves the appearance to a point satisfactory to you, then it's worth doing.

What's the reason for the rust? Lack of mudflaps, or did you scratch it previously?

 

If you're not picky about it... I would use a rust encapsulation product on it and then paint.
Whatever... but you need to take care of that pronto.

 

It’ll be much easier with the bumper and tail light removed. Good luck!

 

Put on a high clearance bumper and cut it off.

 

That's some gnarly surface rust there but it's not a death sentence. Address pronto, then be prepared to maybe address again some years later.

 

the way the paint is wrinkled and bubbled, a long time ago, that rear bumper came up and made significant contact with the sheet metal. enough to crease it where it should be a smooth round-over. that impact is what caused the paint to flake off, and rust to form on the bare metal.

you would definitely need to take the tail light out, and plan to take the bumper off as well

if you're the only owner, and never performed any bumper replacement in the trucks life, i would tentatively expect that much of the bumper composites behind the decorative chrome cover to be cracked or busted up, requiring a new bumper assembly as well.

you'll also likely see the folds better once the tail light and bumper are removed, and ideally, a slide hammer should be used to try to straighten the metal out first before reaching for panel finishing materials.

 

If you try to fix it as described, it's going to look exactly like it does now (if not worse) within a year of you doing it. If you don't care how it looks, the suggestion to use rust encapsulator and then maybe brush-touch it would be OK. Not great, but OK, and better than what your initial plan is.

Soundman is correct. If you look past the bumper, you can see where the inside edge of the panel has cracked paint as well, in the area behind the bumper.

 

This is the worse thing of what happens after the super white peels off. Sorry OP, join the club…

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ailure-thread-with-toyota-corp-update.689940/

 

You need to fix it, I would remove the rust back to bare metal, wire wheel maybe prime and paint. I would not body fill. Again, you need to remove rust and flaking paint. Mask off, prime and paint with a rattle paint can

 

any repair on an altered corner like that is going to require some body filler. unless one hires an absolute magician of a body work guy that has unlimited time to re-work the metal back to it's original form. but that's an art form that would make a dark magic voodoo magician start going to church. if guys like that even exist anymore, it'd be worth paying hourly labor rates just to sit quietly watching them work for a few days.



the goal when using any filler is to use as little as possible. filler has a different thermal expansion property than the substrate it bonds with. meaning that regardless of how well prepped the surfaces are, or how good the bond is, eventually just from thermal events-- sitting/driving in the sun/shade, or even seasonal temperature swings, the different materials will start to pull apart from differing expansion and contraction rates.

by 'panel beating' the corner back to shape to get it to 95% good, only a thin layer of final filler is needed, which reduces the amount of thermal expansion difference, which minimizes it breaking away. there's a thousand different techniques for that, and every one of them has a specific purpose, and sometimes special tooling as well.

also, bondo is about the last thing that should be used for anything other than parade floats. deep-dive into evercoat products as an example of only one companies offerings that are designed to work far better than anything bondo makes, and will actually bond with the underlying substrate.

you won't find bondo on the shelf of any shop that doe medium-quality body work or better, and there's a good reason for that.

the question i learned to ask long ago is to first look to trade-specific successful professionals(not a youtube mechanic-- even a youtube body work guy is a better start), see what tools/processes/materials they use, then work backwards from that point to understand the costs, realistic justifications for each portion, then develop a personally-defined financially-viable substitution, and how those substitutions differ positively or negatively. most times, cheaper options simply require more elbow grease to get the same result.

as an example; evercoats rage gold is a staple finishing filler for fiberglass work for many decades, because it works very smoothly, flows into the workpiece smooth, and finishes better and faster than other brands with less re-coating. one can easily save money buying alternatives, but then loose 10 times the savings in the sanding and prep of the piece because the alternatives don't flow in as nice, develop pinholes while it cures, or takes significantly more effort to sand down to the finished product.

as with any project, it should never be about "buying the best"--far too easy going broke buying things that don't ultimately matter. it should always be about understanding where to put the money for the best result.

as always, "garbage in = garbage out" the quality of the repair is directly affected by the processes, tools, and materials used.

body work is one of those things i've deep-dove into from time to time just for the mystical parts of it. a really good repair will never look like a repair, which is so contradictory to the stuff i normally build to stand out, i can't help but be impressed with what they work towards, only to end up with something that no one sees...

 

Remove surrounding panels. Clean to bare metal. Use 2 part acid etching primer. Cover with buildable primer. Sand to desired shape/contour, etc. Paint.

 

Do something for goodness sakes, that poor truck.

 

If you don’t care what it looks like, but don’t want it to get worse, I suggest you grind the rust to bare metal and paint it. I have a smaller wound on my passenger side door. I ground and covered it with gray primer (gray truck). It’s obvious to the eye, but not getting any worse 2 years later. I plan to drive a the truck into the ground and don’t see a cheap pickup truck as a fashion statement, so I’m content.