I have a 93 accord, and as any 4th gen owner knows, the cars start to rust right where the rear bumper meets the body behind the rear wheels. Yesterday I put the car up in the air and found that rust is starting to eat through the crease on the bottom and is working its way up. I took it to a honda body shop and they said that the only thing they would do was replace the whole quarter. This is quite expensive, time consuming, and not cost effective. I recently swap in an H22 and just purchased new seats. The rest of the body is in good condition so I'd rather not let this eat through my panel and have my car looking like crap.

Has anybody out there had theres fixed, if so how. Also, if anybody knows of any good body shops in the central Md region, it would be much appreciated.

 

yeah it's $$$ to do it right. They want to do the whole panel? I thought they could just cut out the bad part and weld in new piece of metal.

Otherwise you could sand it and paint it, but it will come back since the rot is from the inside.

 

They said that they didn't want to cut and weld a piece on, because they did that for an employee's car and three months later the rust was back.

 

You're gonna laugh at this but it works for a few years anyway. Get in there and cut back the rusted metal to solid metal and then get a good rust inhibitor. Eastwood markets a good one, the good ones aren't cheap and you won't find them at K-Mart but they do work. Treat the effected area and then paint it with a good sealer primer. Fill the holes with heavy brown wrapping paper coated on both sides with fiberglass resin for body repair. On the outer panels make sure it is a little below the level of the original body panel so you have room for a layer of body filler. It works best if applied from the back but that isn't always possible. If you have to apply it from the outside you may want to dimple in the metal surrounding the hole so it is also recessed and will allow the filler to blend in. After the filler has cured work it down to the proper contour and prime it with the sealer primer and then topcoat. on the backside bury the repair area in undercoating.

Laugh if you must but I live in the rust belt and I've seen it work many times. One van in particular I saw 3 or 4 years later. It had been badly rusted to start with, when I saw it all the "paper repairs" still looked like new and the rest of the van had rusted away. If my '91 hangs together long enough that's what I'm going to do to it.

 

I actually did something like this, I wanted some extra support in there too though because I cut out a big section, the rust is pretty far in the back! So i took somefine mesh hardware cloth and cut it out to the right shape and fit it in this big whole, then I put the bondo in over this and just kept working it up, lots of days of sanding, i mean lots. prime paint and clear! I did it this summer, we will see how it looks after this winter because i live in Syracuse, NY. they salt the roads and that will probably be great for it.... Anyways, it looks pretty good and it honestly cost me less than $150 for paint and supplies... although it did take a long time.... If you want, when i got home for christmas break I'll take picture of it and show you how a little work can yield some decent results, better than a giant rust whole right??? I just got a new car last week so the one I did this rust repair on the 94' is at home with my brother that's why I couldnt take any now...

 

To fix my rusty fenders and rocker panels, I'm ordering new wheel arches and rocker panels from Mill Supply ( http://www.rustrepair.com/app2/onlinecat.htm?p=sm ). Cut the old pieces out, fit the new ones in place, tack weld, a little spot putty or fiberglass, sanding, paint, and your set. This will be my first time doing this though, so we'll see how it goes. I think it'll work pretty good though...hopefully

I hate rust

 

Thanks for the link, hadn't heard of these guys.

 

Nice link thanks, but how do you get rust in Florida??

btw, the roads up here in MA and NH are so heavily salted from the last snow it's like powder on the roads. My car looks so bad I want to cry.

 

Must live near the coast or the car spent some time there. Guy near hear bought a "California" car sight unseen and had it shipped back here. When it got here it was nothing but rust. Spent it's entire life near the beach............. What a dumbass !

Cars that are parked near fertilizer plants rust like a bitch as well. That "****" (pun intended) is corrosive as hell.

 

Hehe....don't let that fool ya just yet. I've only lived in Florida for about 3 weeks now. Both me and my car spent our whole lives up until now in northern/central Illinois since birth, and there was plenty of salt there, lol.

Now that it's already started, the humidity down here will just make it worse, so I gotta get this fixed before it gets outta hand

 

Define North/Central............... ? I live in upper West/Central near the Quad Cities.

 

Well we've moved around quite a bit, but when we first got the car we lived in a little town of Earlville, IL (about 15 mi N of I-80, 12 mi E of I-39/US51). Then we moved to Sandwich, IL for a couple months, then Glen Ellyn, and then Lombard (both Chicago suburbs). Then I moved down to Decatur (right on I-72 and US51) and lived there for a year, and then moved down here to FLA. Damn, I've moved around more than I thought, hahah

 

Heard of and been to all but Earlville although it's been many years ago.

 

Damn, thanks for the link. A new front fender for me is only 65 bucks. Any idea what the shipping runs on body panels? And do these bolt up just like factory?

AHHHHH, they're in Cleveland. I can drive up and pick them up myself.


[Modified by Stew Pidasso, 8:07 AM 12/6/2002]

 

i haven't found any rust on mine yet and didn't know there was any specific area that was known to rust on a 4th gen. but then i also live in texas where it can be very dry and thank god it doesn't ice much down here but when it does they throw down sand not salt. makes for a hella dirty car but not rusty at least

 

Thanks for the input everybody. I have not had a chance to do anything about it yet, but I will very soon.

 

Some pics would be cool, I would like to see how it looks.


I will have pics of my car and swap up soon.