Chassis Rust, ugghh...
 

Just finished using a drill bit wire brush to vaporize about a square foot of surface rust that was on the brink of turning into serious, eating rust and coating the bare metal with three coats of rust paint.

This job managed to be worse and better than I expected it: the rust dust (haha) wasn't as much of a problem as I had thought it would be (easily sucked away by exhaust fan), but the lack of space and the undercoating proved much more painful than I had expected.

May or may not be a temporary fix...I can't find any more rust or loose underocating, but I have a feeling I should have my undercoating redone sometime relatively soon...anyone know about what a body shop should charge to do this (or if it should be done at a Merc. shop)?

I was unpleasantly surprised at how sneaky the rust was, it was much more extensive than it looked, and everywhere I found loose undercoating there was slight surface rust hiding underneath :mad: . Turned out to be about two to three times as much as was visible. The wire brush easily destroyed it, however.

Anyways, the point of these ramblings is that if you've never really taken a good look at your undercoating and poked around on it, you may want to try and find any loose spots and peel them back some to check for rust. You may be nastily surprised, but you've got to catch it while it's still just surface. I found some near a drain hole that had actually started pitting the metal slightly :( , but took care of it.