300CD Wheel Well Rust Repair
 

hi all

so, i have this great sahara yellow 84 coupe. unfortunately the previous owner had a really shoddy repair job done on a scrape on the driver side rear wheel well. the previous owner kept it garaged, so the rust was very minimal, well superstorm nemo hits, the car is outside, water gets in those little rust pocks, freezes, expands and now i have a real disaster on my hands.

i know the recent damage is just exposing whats been rusting in there for awhile, this is the only spot on the car with any rust to speak of.

i talked to one body shop about chopping the section out and fabricating a new piece, but they said it wont ever look the same, they said if i could find a donor car to cut that section out of it would be a MUCH less noticeable repair.

is this insane? whats the best way to go about this. it seems as though the rust is to extensive to grind down and work from there.

ill post pictures tomorrow

thanks,
lbj

A competent body man can fabricate anything. It's just a question of money.
Having said that, pictures can clarify a lot.

Do you have a picture? IMHO, the ONLY way to do a proper rust repair is to strip to bare metal in the area, cut out the metal, make or buy and trim a patch, weld it into place, then apply body filler and paint. Most anything else is a band aid over the wound without applying anything to prevent infection.

My $0.02,

Sectioning the area or areas required out of a donar car is the best way to go. Far less time and with good practices a far superior repair. Much less time for labour sometimes.

You have to check the lip of the inner fender for integrity if the issue was created by rust initially. In your case because it was collision related you may have dodged a bullet.

Even if you employ a competant body guy taking the required sections to him as well as the car should save labour money.

There where weld in patch panels marketed for this series of cars. I do not know if they are still available. I have purchased them and they were not that expensive.

Cutting out patch panels from a donar car is still better as you have far more flexiability. Almost any store that sells auto paint will have a catalogue of available patch panels. Or you can look them up on the web. In fact just asking for body patch panels on the web should produce a list of suppliers. Remember though the original metal is thicker and cheaper with cut outs usually.

I do not know some of the american suppliers but for a general refferance you can look up cross canada auto parts.com or .ca. There should still be a website and catalogue there.

I am a great believer in doing things for ourselves. If you have a fair amount of experience and the tools required I will usually go for something. Without some past experience I would farm out any body work that is going to involve working on the rear quarter of a coupe design. Experience does count especially in areas like that. By the same token it does not have to be all that expensive.

I have come across a few suppliers of body panels.

77-85 Mercedes 300 Body Panels from Key Parts at Andy's Auto Sport

1976-1985 W123 - Rust Repair Panels

Welcome To Autobodystore.com


Charlie

Since My Car is kind of a rust bucket see the pics of what I did with some Polyester Cloth and JB Weld. Fiber Glass Cloth would also work.

I off as much rust as I could and applied one of those rust restorer products. I did the same to the inside and the outside.

I used the Hair Dryer to speed up the Cure time on the Epoxy.