in my front fender wells after i pulled the inner liners out i have some holes in body where i can push on the inside matting.. my question is there is like a spattered look to the surrounding metal.. is this factory?? it looks like popcorn ceilings lol.. or is this a past repair job gone bad??

whats the best way to fix this without access to a welder?? put some metal screen behind the hole and slop some bondo on?? maybe fiberglass over the hole??

i can post up a pic so everyone can see the infected areas..

 

drivers side fender well right above the cab corner

 

Bondo is just going to hold moisture and make you come back next year and repeat the process.

I'd wire wheel the whiz out of that area and make sure you have good metal to attach to, then try some aluminum flashing and an adhesive like Fuzor. I'd then slap some walmart bedliner in a can on the repair and forget about it.

(for those ready to bash, I have a welder and would just use it, but this is my low buck approach...)

 

The spatter/popcorn is likely the factory undercoat crap. So you'll want to get to bare metal before any patching. Welding a patch OS best, but I'll bet most of the surrounding metal is in pretty sad shape, too. Kill the rust around it before you patch, whichever way you go. Otherwise,you'll be right back in there in a couple years.

 

Had the same issue on my rig. I sand blasted all the rust out (Suprising how far it goes under the paint) from both the inside & outside, cut & pounded a licence plate to fill the hole, and put it in place with windshield polyurathane.

Licence plates are great. They never rust and they're pretty strong and easy to shape. Polyurathane sticks to just about everything (including your hands). It's pretty tough and provides a good seal. I put a large bead of it around the hole where the licence plate overlapped and temporarily held it in place with screws. Polyurathane is pretty tough as long as it's fairly thick. You don't want a layer that's paper thin. You want a pretty thick bead in there so don't try to squeeze it all out. Once the plate was in place I ran a thick layer over the plate on both sides and smoothed it out with a plastic body paddle. The idea is to cover all exposed metal and fill any voids where water might get. Once it set it was super solid and so far it seems to be holding with no issues.

 

I think ill have to try the liscence plate idea.. I wish I could fix it right but don't have the money now.. and need to to something with it before winter....

 

never heard the license plate idea, sounds a little janky. id remove the rust away from the area, go to a atwoods or something, and buy a small sheet of replacement metal, cut to fit and weld it in there. grind it smooth. put rustoleum, or just seal primer it, unless this is like a junky mud toy that doesnt matter, then the license plate would be funny

 

fiber glass works good too.. lisence plate seems a little janky but it would work