my first attempt at rust repair

Hey everyone,
Typically, I am a lurker. I'll have to put together a build thread… not having much luck finding threads about rust repair on 1st gen beds this thread will be about the rust repair and paint of a bed.

This is my first attempt at rust repair. I’m by no means an expert on this and am just reading / learning as I go (I do have a buddy who used to work at a body shop so he has given me some tips, and will help me with the paint, or so he says.)

Over the last year or so I’ve noticed that my bed was bubbling the paint up under the fender flares, I bought a cap for the truck (which I want to paint.)


I wanted to try and fix both at the same time. I’ve had the truck awhile, living in upstate New York where salt is heavily used most vehicles rust out, this one is no different. I had the frame replaced under warranty. when I priced out a new truck I decided I can’t afford one (well, at least, not the one I want) and I like my truck so may as well keep mine longer (or as long as I can)

After pulling the fender flares and picking around at the paint it became apparent I would need to do some major body work of the cut out and weld in new metal… not just a sand down and paint.


I briefly Looked around for a bed locally, but I didn’t find one that wasn’t in as bad or worse shape. I look at it as an opportunity to learn some new skills, use some tools I have acquired but never put to use (and it turns out… buy some new ones.) I also have some outstanding maintenance issues which have been bugging me (evap leak, exhaust gaskets leaking, etc) so I pulled the bed to make it easier to see how badly rusted things are and give me access to the other problem pieces.

The evap leak was around the filler neck, I’ve ordered a new one to put in. also I snapped bolts (all over on this effort so far) but specifically the fuel inlet box (part number: 61709-04020) removing the bolts that hold that together, instead of trying to save the piece which rusted pretty badly I ordered a new one.



sadly it’s not possible to get a full bed side and just drill out the spot welds, so I sourced a patch panel and after a bit of debate (and reading about how best to do this) finally have gotten a chance to trace it out. I sanded the area in question to see how bad the rust was, and decided to just go all in on the patch panel.


A tip from a welding friend was to use a scribe to trace and the patch panel size as close as possible to the cut. I cut it out with a cut off wheel and test fit the panel (tried to get it as close as I could, not bad for my first try.)


and then tried my hand at welding it back in. (badly in spots) I picked up a new roll of

$40 WeldingCity Mild Steel MIG Welding Wire ER70S-6 10-Lb Roll 0.023" (0.6mm) 8"-spool

.23 welding wire for this off of Amazon, some magnets and clamps from tractor supply and went to town. from what I've read you want to tack weld, then move to another area of the metal that is cool so you don't warp things.


Then I connected the welds, and sanded down with a 36 grit disk sander (which I haven't used until this project) I found that I had areas of weld which blew through or didn't connect 100%, but had decent penetration.

Then I tried to fill in the pin holes after sanding down (this was probably a mistake, I blew through the thin metal and was not as successful. At this point I had done as much damage as I could this round and hit everything with some self etching primer.


Checking the lines of the bed they more or less flow still, so overall not bad for my first attempt. I figure most of this will be covered with the fender flare (so I have a bit of leeway) and my buddy who does body work has given me some tips of what type of body filler to look into for the next steps.


I'll post up as I make more progress, thanks for reading.

 

Looks good man I definitely don’t have the balls to cut up my bed

 

Hah, thanks. I spent a few days between when I got the patch panel to when I went ahead and cut things up, despite my newbie welding skills I think it's better than it was. we'll see how things turn out.

 

That looks great!

Good for you for jumping in and getting after it!

Subbed!

 

I look forward to seeing how your finished product looks. I'd say you're doing an awesome job (...especially for a rookie (like me)).

 

I did both sides of my bed. If you don't have one of these tools and you will be doing any more of this body panel patching, you should get one. Greatly reduces the amount of body filler needed by creating a recessed ledge for the new panel to sit on and be welded. Here are a few pics from my 1995. It was rusted on every panel:

 

Nice work!
Where are you located?

If anyone else needs I have a bed that’s slightly damaged in Northern CA and no tail gate.

 

Nice! thanks for the tool tip, I'll check it out! after my experience of sanding down the welds and not being happy with the results I've read through couple more forums on body work and I think i'll be investing in a 1/2 belt sander which would have made my weld cleanup a bit more precise (e.g. )

upstate NY (fingerlakes region)

Hope to get a chance to dig back into things tomorrow night.

 

A lot of work!
Curious-What do you suppose this would cost at a typical shop?

 

If you use one of those tools, you don't need near as much sanding on the welds. They can be pretty close to even with the body panel surface, so you can just clean them up and use body filler over them.

You can see if you cut you patch piece slightly smaller than the width of the ledge, your spot weld ends up being down in the trough.

 

Not sure, I was quoted (sight unseen) 3K+ for body work, I didn't pursue it further.

Cool, heading down to hit up Harbor Freight at lunch here.

Made it over to the shop last night, pulled the old filler neck (gas tank is pretty crusty around the top... may see what my options are there) temporary put the bed back on the truck to get my snow rims and tires on my tdi. Hoping to get back over to the shop later on this week to work some more on this but with grad school and life going on I may not be good but I sure am slow!

 

My 03 had rust under the rear fender flares. It made me sick to see my pride and joy like that! Luckily, my dad has a good friend who does really good body work. He only charged me $250, and all the other shops wanted a fortune. One estimate was around $5,000. I'm keeping the flares off my 03. I just bought a 05 Taco for winter so I can keep my 03 off salty roads. I want to take the flares off my "new" truck too. There's a lot of dirt under them but I don't think there's rust. Here's some before and after pics of my 03.

 

ouch, yeah you had some rust trapped there, but it looks like it turned out great!

 

250 Great price and came out looking brand new! Looks good

 

Since I have a harbor freight right here in town I checked out the flange tool, but at the moment, I need to sand in a more targeted fashion so. I picked up this belt sander at harbor freight and a hook/loop DA backing pad for a dual action sander I have.

Made some progress with that last night testing out the new sander & DA than hit things with a coat of primer to keep them from rusting. Will be buying some filler called "all-metal" that was recommended by a friend who did body work and says that it's really great to work with. https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/BK_7652769

before:


during:



after:


While the The fender flare will cover most of the rest of the spots which are in rough shape, I probably going to cut out some more of the rusted parts that the patch panel didn't cover and weld in some new patches. (we'll see how ambitious I get, one of the things I debated about before this started was a flatbed project) but if I go that route, I'll check into the flanging tool.

 

I applied some all-metal to learn how the product works (I never have done this before so figured I need practice...) then got ambitious and made some lower patch panels. I think with the welds, I'm getting a little better with practice and watching a few how to vids, then testing out some new tools and refining techniques.

That being said, I have not picked up the flange tool yet and I'm still working on mastering butt welds. I may before the end of the effort, but for now I'm going to go with butt welds.


All Metal Application:


Lower rocker Patching:

Patch 1


Patch 2:


Final outcome: Better than rust


next steps start working on the rocker on the other side of the box and then work on getting the all-metal applied.

 

how about any minor repair tips or tricks and/or preventative measures to employ going forward different than what i have done for nearly 1/4 century? just spraying down routinely at the wand wash in the winter

i have OCD about keeping the panels and wheel wells clean of winter slop with the routine wash wand hose ... but i guess you cannot get everything that finds it way up under there.
recently removed the wheel arch mouldings and most of the fender liner grommets to clean decades of sand and dirt turned back to mud and topped off spraying anti corrosion gel wherever it would mist.
but i found the beginnings of body rot i think on the lips of the wheel arches at the very top! it would seem like a simple repair once the bed is upside down. The body shop told me there is nothing really going on here but all they can do is paint the ENTIRE panel so IDK
here are pics, what to do for the best to fix this from getting worse



i assume the same thing is going on the other side of this area that i cannot see as well?

 

most likely happening in places you can't reach easily / miss with the anti-corrosion routine (although from what I've seen you do a pretty great job) time and elements are hard to fight. You could confirm with a borescope inspection camera

in terms of how to "fix" what you can see, I'm the first to admit I am not an expert! For what you can reach the amount there is probably small enough you could wire brush down, por15 (or some other form of rust conversion) and topcoat. (if it's super crusty, then cut out and weld in new metal is the only way to repair from what I've read)

replace with new/unrusted parts or wirebrush & paint is what I am planning on doing for some of the major offenders on my truck that can be accessed now that I have the bed off (e.g. spare tire carrier, bumper supports ) assuming I can get things apart.

in terms of rust treatment going forward, once I finish things with this I plan to undercoat with a treatment of some type that I haven't decided on yet. still reading up on what might work best. I'm debating on a combination of Noxudol 700 / 300 ... or just going with fluid film that most people (yourself included?) use. . . although with the rate I'm working on this, spring will be here before I get things back together

 

it just looks like body panel paint with rust creeping behind it until the paint can no longer hold and falls off with the metal getting softer, its still solid it seems from finger tapping

i have not heard of using por-15 on body panel parts as opposed to using lots of touch-up paint on a primer which i did in a few spots by the liner grommets that were mildly scratched up
this is the first year i have ever tried spraying any product up there, just tried to keep it hosed down at the wash
i am thinking the FF will most likely wash out of the wheel wells way too easily but i need to do some experiment with it first, then try some woolwax if that fails
failure is a real bummer

 

... curious about what kind of lift setup you are using in your garage?