The spare tire well was an interesting one that we worked on this past weekend. The inside had some surface rust, but looked generally good with a couple of exceptions. There was a small area that had been previously patched near the inner fender and a few pinholes under the spare tire centering/securing stud.
Further inspection revealed, yep, you guessed it, another beer can repair! That small patch was indeed another repair just like the one from the shock tower. Also, we discovered some pretty bad rust where the trunk floor meets the quarter panel, up to the inner/outer wheel well.
One other area that had me wondering was the underside of the spare tire well. It looked very blotchy with lots of undercoating. After some scraping, we found that the original metal had a lot of rust holes. Some previous owner had welded in a patch from the inside, then just covered up the old rusty metal with undercoating from underneath. So, we cut all that old metal away just under the PO's weld and then I welded the new seam from the outside. Then I ground down the welds on the inside.
This process revealed the center area was pretty weak, so I cut it out and welded in a patch and marked where I'll place the spare tire centering/securing stud. Also, we started forming the patches for the wheel well and trunk floor.
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| Wheel well rust being removed by Stuart and his mad Dremel skillz. Also note the hole already cut in the spare tire well. |
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| Rust removed! |
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| Old section above, new patch below. |
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| Center patch from underneath with wel-thru primer in area for tow hook. |
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| Tow hook after cleaning, some paint, and a new plate was welded for reinforcement. |
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| Overview of the spare tire well repairs. |
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| Spare tire well after grinding and with some of the patch pieces (partially fabricated). |
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