Rust on the Subie

[the_bard]

Subject says it all... with all the crawling around I've been doing under the car lately (switching out half-shafts and ball joints), I've noticed two surface rust spots on the frame, on either side of the engine.

 

It's not bad... looks like something I could hand sand and treat with POR-15, and get away with. It's got me wondering about the rest of the body, though... the rust has gotten the rear wheel wells pretty badly, and both front fenders.

 

My original plans were to knock as much rust as I could off, treat the edges with POR-15, and then fiberglass and bondo a replacement in. I'm fairly sure I can get it looking reasonably well (I'm patient, spent a lot of years playing with plastic model aircraft... looks like it's the same ideas, on a different scale... I ought to be able to pick it up). I'm worried about how structurally safe it is. The holes in the rear wheel wells are pretty bad, to the point where it makes me wonder how much salt and water have been sprayed inside the body... where I can't see.

 

Seems to me that the car's going to last a year or so if I go ahead with my plans... after that, my fiance will be out of college, and money won't be quite as tight. I'm wondering whether it'll be easier just to sell off the Subie for parts, and pick up another one (Yep, I'm addicted. ).

 

How's the availability of Subaru's down south? Out of the "coat the road with salt" states, at least... I'd like to find something along the lines of my Loyale without the rust. Seems to me that I'll have to get outside of NY to do that... at least I've got a year or so to do the searching .

 

Which brings me up to another question... once I've found it (it's not a question of if, it's when... I'm determined), does anybody have any tips to keep it rust free? I'm figuring on redoing the underbody with POR-15 (if it lives up to the hype I'm hearing) and building it up from there.

 

'Course, I could just move out of NY...

[bushbasher]

the best way is to keep the fender wells rust free, is to pop off the plastic inner gaurds and make sure there is no trapped dirt. Also, the mud flaps are a really bad design, they trap dirt badly in the fenderwells. The major things that speed up fenderwell rust are salt (I'm lucky we use sand instead of salt on the roads) And wet, drapped dirt (Sand still isn't perfect ) I've removed my mudflaps. A good way to plug rust holes in the underbody is to wait till it's been really dry for a long time, and plug the hole with tar. It makes a water and airtight seal. If theres dirt in the hole, flush as much out as you can, then plug it after it's all dry.