Advice needed on a couple of rust repairs

[Jek318is]

I've decided to try and tackle a few rust spots on my car, and have been having a good poke around underneath.

The shell seems to be in ok condition overall, (I hope!), but I've got outbreaks of rust at both the front and rear jacking points, and on the sill at the bottom of the A-pillar, which explains my wet carpet!

The sill repair looks like it won't be too difficult, but I cant think how I can easily repair the jacking points without simply cutting them out and replacing them with flat sheet. This would obviously leave the car without these jacking points!

I've read about the jacking point being repaired with a replacement section cut from another car, but it must be difficult to find a scrapped E30 with solid jacking points!

Any thoughts on the best way to approach this? Hopefully there's a simple and cheap method that I can carry out myself!







Cheers,

Jek

[don-king]

the pics do not work fella.........

[Jek318is]

Oops, sorry should be working now

[harry_p]

the square bit at the front corner of the floorpan is NOT a jacking point, and using it as one often makes them corrode far quicker.

much more simple to replace with flat sheet which should mean noone in the future mistakes them for an actual jacking point so you avoid the problem returning. purists may prefer fabricating a section to look like the original, but most can see the logic behind getting rid of it so that's the method i would choose.

[Jek318is]

Cheers Harry,

I was aware about the square section often being mistaken for a jacking point - sounds like a good idea to just to cut it out and replace with flat sheet. Much easier to make, too!

Any ideas for the real jacking point (i think!?) shown in my second picture?

Jek

[Jek318is]

Managed to get round to repairing a rusty section on my scuttle panel. I thought this was just a tiny blister on the paint until I put my finger right through it - it must have rusted from the inside out.


Here's the hole I cut out



...and the welded section with filler and primer ready for paint.

Pretty pleased with result, but I'm still stumped with the jacking point repair. Not sure how I can fix it easily without chopping it out and welding in sheet, leaving me with no jacking point! Any tips anyone?

Jek




I've still got no idea how to tackle the jacking point repairs though - any pointers anyone?

[MrWhite]

I had the same problem with my rear jacking points. My original plan was to try to fins some good condition donor metal from another car and weld it in place but I had no success finding another scrap car with good jacking points.
The solution I came to was to cut the old ones out and repair the hole so that it now looks like the rest of the sill. The area is reinforced so that it can be used with the factory jack to raise the car. I never use the sill jacking points with a trolley jack anyway.

I'll try to look out some pictures.

[Jek318is]

I think I'll probably attempt something similar, MrWhite. There's only one scrap yard near me and they don't have any E30s in so I've got little chance of finding a donor jacking point anyway. Some photos would be fantastic, cheers!

[MrWhite]

I managed to find a few pics I'd taken:

Repairs to the front footwell areas with the plates tacked in place -




Rear jacking points with the rust cut out and the first of the new metal put in place -




The repaired jacking points before filling -




And the finished article (I need to touch up the black a bit) -


Its not the neatest of jobs but once the welds were sealed and a bit of filler and paint applied, you'd have to look closely to see the work.

The rear jacking points are now rust free and an awful lot stronger than they were before.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one with a rotten car. Good luck.

[k13]

nice job.

im in the middle of repairing few rust holes myself. repaired my sunroof rust , repaired my roof rust. going to repair door rust just on the edges. sanded it down used wax oil rust remover good stuff that...then prime and black spray and bit of laqure. jobs a gooden well it'll prevent the rust from spreading for sure.

[swindler]

How did you deal with roof rust k13?

[SteMarsden]

Thats exactly how my sill looks and exactly what I think I'll do to repair it. Thanks. Ste.

[k13]

i used wax oil rust remover and it prevents rust too, got as much as rust off with that stuff including sanding it down...then i filled it using body filler....let that dry then sanded it down got it as flat as possible then primer then black spray and laqure (optional)

thanks.

[MrWhite]

k13: Did you get at the roof rust from the inside or did you repair it all from above?

I've got some rusty bits coming through the roof skin near the back edge of the sunroof. I've repaired a 5p size hole in front of the sunroof with kurust, filler and zinc primer but the rust has started to come through again. I think it is a losing battle unless I get the headlining out.

[k13]

i repaired it from above it was 2mm deep so wernt that much to do and was only 10p size hole. i dont know how long it will hold the rust away for but i think it would be enough untill i take it to a body shop to redo the whole thing but for the time being and winter around the corner it will do.


damn if the rust has started to come through maybe the kurust didnt help or didnt get the rust off properly or rust has started from underneath the first panel so its coming up from underneath. what i did was i took the sunroof panel off pretty easy...then i sanded the whole panel to bare metal....removed all the rust holes man there were loads ended up ripping 4" of rust anyways....i sanded it down usin electric sander and used wax oil rust remover cleaned it filled it with body filler, sanded it till smooth and did 4 coats of prime smoothed it too after hardening for an hour and 2-3 coats of black and 2 coats of laqure.

i hope the rust dont show. lol.

[Jek318is]

Fantastic, thanks for the photos, MrWhite! I'm following your method - got most of the rust cut out this evening, hopefully start welding in patches tomorrow. Seam sealer and that rubbery stone chip stuff on the sills really stinks when you take it off with a flap disc!

My car is going to end up asymmetric, since I'm cutting out the front jacking point on one side, and the rear on the other.

The repair to the square section at the bottom of the A-pillar doesn't look too tricky, will give that a shot tomorrow, too. Just lifted my carpet and its soaking in the passenger footwell.