Hello,
I had my TR4 in storage for a while and had rescently started to get it ready
for the road again. This past week I started to go over the body and noticed
some bubbles behind the drivers side front wheel. I found out that I had now
had a very severe rust spot the size of a coke can there. Basically the car
was rust free. I checked around and found the lower portion of the drivers
door also has some rust as well as the passanger side rocker (I'm assuming the
portion of the fender along the bottom is called the rocker panel) behind the
front wheel.
This is a southern calif car, so rust was never really that big a worry with
me, but what appears to have happened is that dirt/leaves/whatever settled in
behind the metal and moisture sat there and did its insidious work.
I am now fairly bothered by this, since I am not the kind of guy who enjoys
body work by any means. I am imaigning that by the time I go thru and rid the
rust I will have no body left anymore. All my body work attempts thru out my
life have left me wishing for a different car in the end.
I flipped open the moss catalog and they do not offer this part as a
replacement. I am considering taking a spot bead blaster to the area and see
how bad the rust is where I can not see. I am worried that when I'm done there
will be no more rocker panel left. I have also considered taking a plaster
mold of the area since it still looks ok and get an impression so that if I do
the repair I have some guidance as to what it should have looked like.
The car is still stock with it's original motor that had been rebuilt and only
has maybe 5k on the rebuild if that. So now I need to figure out what to do
with this rust problem, are there replacement rocker panles available? I
typically never ever take my cars in to someone else for repair, I prefer to
do all the work myself. I have a complete shop with just about everything I
could ever need for repairs. I can't imagine using bondo or whatever on this
repair because it looks like once I bead blast the rust away there will be no
place of attachment for the bottom of the fender. I have a MIG welder that I
was considering using to graft some new metal in place with, but I am
unexperianced in sheetmeatal welding and body forming.
All in all this really sucks, Wanted to repaint the car and have some fun with
it but now it seems my summer project is not going to see the road gfor
awhile.
Any ideas or sources would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Oliver
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