he's right, thats what i would do, or if it gets too expensive i would just sell it and buy another

 

haha well anyone want to buy a 2003 monte ls with just under 72k? and what exactly do u mean buy rustproffing?

 

lol I think most of us have something pretty similar already

Whatever you end up doing, good luck and hopefully it works.

 

Rustproofing is a petrolium based rust inhibitor. It comes in aerosol cans as well as bottles. It stays in a semi-liquid state and repels water.

 

thanks alot man! and everyone else this forum never ceases to help me in times of need with my monte lol

 

replacing the whole quarter fender for that little bit is crazy... but like I said, I think you can drastically slow down the rust if you properly rust proof it . I don't mean the rustoleum spray can stuf.. you need a quart of Rust Doctor or Ospho... I think Lowe's carries gallons of Ospho... you'd only need a quart of either if you can find it though. I could understand replacing a 15-20" section due to that rest, but not an entire quarter fender.

I think they tell you taht in body shop school because it's kind of like hitting a gopher on the head at the fair. You kill this rust, then a year later, a spot somewhere else pops up.... if you replace that whole quarter fender, you know you got everything. But the thing is, if you closely inspect that whole quarter fender and find that to be the only bad spot, which it may be due to dirt packing right there... it may be okay.

Rust is really fun to kill.... it's a true mess. Move to Nevada.

 

I'm with Matt and Duane. Replacing the entire quarter panel at this point is overkill. Especially when you need money for school. The important thing is to use some kind of rust proofing on the back side of the repaired area.

I look at it this way. If you get your hands dirty. Do you wash your hands or take a shower?

 

I patched the quarter panels on my 1940 chevy in 1988 they just started to show rust again in 2009 not bad for 21 years ??? I will redo some time .. I would patch ..

 

Keep in mind you can't just put a patch over rust... you've got to treat the rust. I've seen people in the Ford community, which we are known for having rusty floor pans, just rivot new pans to the old floor pan. Of course, with he metal directly in contact, the cancerous rust just spreads right into the new pan and in 2-3 year,s you're rusted out again. You've got to treat the rust. In my opinion, you need a rust converter. Rust doctor converts it to magnite.. been using it 3 years, so far, so good... but 3 years isn't that long either.

I haven't read anyone but the panel replacing guy talk about the other side of your car... considering that the whole car has probably been in roughly the same place most of its life, there is a good chance that the rest of the car isn't too far behind. Check out that other quarter fender. Anotehr bad spot for a lot of cars is the doors. There are drain holes in the bottoms of the doors that stop up, collect moisture, and generally rust out hte doors in the corners. Use a flashlight and even a small screw driver to make sure your holes are clear. One time I was driving and thought I hear water sloshing... I must have had 2 gallons of water in the passenger door. I pulled over, popped my finger nail into the drain plug and sat there for 5 minutes watching my car flood a Volunteer Fire Departments parking lot...

Bondo just won't fill a hole that big... If you fill a hole the size of a dime with bondo, and it sticks, consider it luck. You can't fill much more than a quarter inch hole or so.... barelly even that. Pin holes is basically all you'll fill. The expansion and contraction differences between metal and bondo will cause it to pop out. If you want to try something, you could buy some fiberglass matting cloth and some resin, cut out a patch, and shove a fiberglass patch in there. Look up a video on the internet of how to do it. Once you have the fiberglass in there for it stick to, bondo it and even use a brush to paint it. That might last longer than bondo... might not. I've gotten away with it on a work truck for a guy for about 2 years. He knows I didn't fix it right, and I know I didn't fix it right. It's starting to get a faint line right where the fiberglass patches were made, but it isn't out yet. Been there for a little over 2 years now, actually.

Just devote a good saturday to the project. If family and jobs aren't an issue, move to Nevada, Arizona, etc.. They put cars in junk yard to part out that are in better shape than cars we drive here on the east coast.

 

You're absolutely right about patching over rust Duane.

That's why most of us on the previous pages said that the affected area needs to be cut out completely. Don't just put fresh metal over rusty old metal. Or you can do the process Duane mentioned.