240 Butt Cheek/Wheel Arch Repair

Hey guys, I've been searching high and low for some ideas on how to go about fixing some rust issues on my girlfriends '89 245. It's too bad that photobucket killed so many images in many of the quality restoration project threads. Does anybody have a recent thread or pictures of their repairs? I thought about buying patch panels, but I don't think those are going to help me in this situation. I'm guessing that I'll be better off just forming my own.

Either way, I'm going to go for it. I'm not a great body man, so I'm hoping that I can keep most of the repair below the top of the plastic trim where it can't be seen. I'm not going to hold my breath though. In the end I just want to keep the outdoors out and make it last.







It's a shame. I've spent a lot of time under this car and rest of it is actually really nice. For some reason this particular wheel well is a mess.

Assuming you have a MIG welder and a 4 1/2" grinder...

Wire wheel and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Cut out all the cancer, you can't weld to rust.

Cut out a larger section at junkyard, hand fit to replace the rot, tack it in, seam sealer, mud, paint.

Or the old POR 15 and fiberglass treatment if you've no welder.

kyote said:

Assuming you have a MIG welder and a 4 1/2" grinder...

Wire wheel and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Cut out all the cancer, you can't weld to rust.

Cut out a larger section at junkyard, hand fit to replace the rot, tack it in, seam sealer, mud, paint.

Or the old POR 15 and fiberglass treatment if you've no welder.

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I've been through the process on other cars. I'm just looking for some ideas on this particular spot. I suppose I could look at the passenger side for reference since it's still in good shape.

I live in the Midwest, so junk yards here are quite literally yards full of junk. There are no rust-free 30 year old cars to cut panels from. In all seriousness I guess it doesn't hurt for me to search though. I might get lucky. I just hope it doesn't come to that.

Oh, and I do plan to MIG it. I have a giant sheet of 16G steel and a new bottle of gas, so I'm set to start. I guess I'm just looking for some inspiration and motivation because I hate doing this dirty work!

I figured if there were some build threads out there that cover the same issues I'm having I can gain some insight on better ways to get the job done. If not, I'll figure out my own way.

16g is too thick. I use 20g metal or cut from another panel. Get a good rust free hood or roof from another junked car and use that sheet metal for your repairs. Get cardboard and after cleaning up the repair area, cutting it back to where you can weld and there isn't any rust. Cut out cardboard templates of the shape you need. The fit it up to the metal and cut out the metal in the shape. Then tack weld it into place and see if you have a good fit. if you do. Spot weld the panel. Moving around. Don't try to make a bead on an outer body panel. Use spot welds and move around to let the welds cool. This will minimize warping.

The butt cheek can be a little tough because three panels come together there. I would suggest buying butt cheeks which are available from places like Skandix. For the other repairs you can make your own. Use seam sealer on the repairs and you can also paint with POR15 or rust encapsulator from eastwood. Take your time and you'll get it fixed.

Check out eastwood for supplies and equipment for dooing rust repairs. Post back if you have any questions. There isn't a lot of rust repair threads in any case so you didn't miss anything.

dl242gt said:

16g is too thick. I use 20g metal or cut from another panel. Get a good rust free hood or roof from another junked car and use that sheet metal for your repairs. Get cardboard and after cleaning up the repair area, cutting it back to where you can weld and there isn't any rust. Cut out cardboard templates of the shape you need. The fit it up to the metal and cut out the metal in the shape. Then tack weld it into place and see if you have a good fit. if you do. Spot weld the panel. Moving around. Don't try to make a bead on an outer body panel. Use spot welds and move around to let the welds cool. This will minimize warping.

The butt cheek can be a little tough because three panels come together there. I would suggest buying butt cheeks which are available from places like Skandix. For the other repairs you can make your own. Use seam sealer on the repairs and you can also paint with POR15 or rust encapsulator from eastwood. Take your time and you'll get it fixed.

Check out eastwood for supplies and equipment for dooing rust repairs. Post back if you have any questions. There isn't a lot of rust repair threads in any case so you didn't miss anything.

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Is there an issue with using too thick of metal other than it being heavier and more difficult to work with? Also, I meant 18G not 16. My bad. I just figured I would go for it because I have a lot of it and it was super cheap.

I was curious about the new pieces, but it's hard to tell from the stock photos as to what I would actually get. Does it include that whole section where the three panels com together or is it just up to that point? I Assume the latter in which case I feel it would almost be easier as well as cost effective to just make my own patch. I'm still investigating though. Considering my cheek is fine as soon as you get past the wheel well I would hardly be using any of that panel regardless.

I started heating and scraping away the undercoating tonight. It looks to be dang near isolated to to the visible areas which is a huge but pleasant surprise.






I've had a hard time in the past trying to make patches in weird spots like this after the old section has already been cut out. This time I'm going to at least make a patch for the quarter panel first and then cut out the old stuff. I can always cut the old out and make a better patch later.

Here's the inside after scraping. I'll scrape the rest of the affected area and wire wheel it all tomorrow. It looks like I'll have to make a new mudflap bracket too. That stuff doesn't bug me as much. I can make functional stuff. I'm just not good at making things smooth and pretty!

I ended up buying a wheel arch from Sherman. I know these aren't the highest of quality, but neither are my skills. I've done a lot of floors and wheels well repairs, but never anything that needed to actually look nice. The curves of that area are fairly complex, so I'm taking your advise on this part. They were less than $30 with free shipping anyway. I may do the same with the butt cheeks if I find a similar deal, but I still think I'll be able to make a patch for that without making it super ugly. I guess we'll find out!

Sherman auto parts?

VolvoLatAm said:

Sherman auto parts?

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You don?t have google?

https://www.shermanparts.com/ecat/b...olvo+240&make=Volvo&model=Volvo+240&year=1989

Yes, that Sherman. Although I bought them through Summit with a bunch of parts for my other project so that I could take advantage of that free shipping!

Good move. You can also buy new rust repair arches from Skiandix. The shipping is fast and the flat rate shipping gives you 31kg of parts to ship over. I bought my exhaust and some other misc parts from them.

The cosmetic stuff has always been more of a challenge. Just take your time and remember not to try and seam weld it. use spot welds and let them cool before welding again in that area. The grinder can make ugly welds disappear. Glad you put up this thread because it will help a lot of people be more confident in fixing metal. At least I hope so.

There's also these guys, both in the US.

No experience with either though.

Raybuck

Mill Supply

dl242gt said:

Good move. You can also buy new rust repair arches from Skiandix. The shipping is fast and the flat rate shipping gives you 31kg of parts to ship over. I bought my exhaust and some other misc parts from them.

The cosmetic stuff has always been more of a challenge. Just take your time and remember not to try and seam weld it. use spot welds and let them cool before welding again in that area. The grinder can make ugly welds disappear. Glad you put up this thread because it will help a lot of people be more confident in fixing metal. At least I hope so.

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Interesting. I wanted to use Skandix just because I figured I could trust it to fit better, but I was worried it would take forever to get here. I'm in a bit of a time crunch to get this car out of my garage and patches are rarely perfect anyway. The Sherman part was drop shipped today, so I should have it at the beginning of next week.

Thanks for the encouraging words. I remember trying to lay long beads the first time I did floors in a car. The results were humorous. Even though I really want this done quickly, I'm going to make sure it's done well with documentation. Whether the work is quality or not, I figure it will help me get some constructive criticism now or somebody else later.

LOL I too learned the hard way by warping the crap out of floors and rockers I was doing long ago in the 80s. I haven't done much in the last ten years but have my work cut out for me as I don't plan on getting any newer cars. I bought wheel arch repair panels from Skandix for my turbo. The Euro places can order a lot more panels than most US suppliers.

There is a lot of panel repair stuff on youtube as well. Porsches and british sports cars are stuff people restore a lot so there is probably good video there. Also the clapped out garage guys on youtube built a 240 pickup and they did rocker repairs on that. Not sure about the back butt cheeks but they may be of help with rocker stuff.

I did some more cleaning with the wire wheel to make sure I'm not missing anything.



The inner-most pinch seam was not easy to cut out due to its awkward location. I used a combination of cutoff wheels and a sawzall to get the job done. My pneumatic metal saw is a POS otherwise I'd use one. I don't recommend Harbor Freight air tools at all. Spend a few extra bucks on those.

Removing the "safety triangles" gives you much better tool access, but it also exposes your gas tank. I'm taking caution and covering the tank with a fiberglass blanket when I cut. Since the the rear calipers never had the stops anyway, I'm not putting those heavy triangle things back on.



Here's after my initial cuts. I cut a lot of good metal out, but it's better than leaving bad metal in. Plus. I like to make my patches fairly square so that they're easy to measure and cut the patch. As for the pinch welds I cut out, I don't think I'm going to recreate them. They were completely rotted out so I would have needed to recreate both sides.





Here's a better view of the wheel arch looking from the inside out. I'm going to have to cut a little more of this out than I thought, and that scares me. I don't want to have to replace much more of the painted sheet metal than I have to, but I guess we will soon find out just how bad these pinch welds are. I'm guessing it's rotted out most of the way around.

Treat any spots that are showing with Gem Rust Killer before you do the seam sealer and mud.

Doing well! Kill that rust sheiss!

kyote said:

Treat any spots that are showing with Gem Rust Killer before you do the seam sealer and mud.

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I haven't heard of that one. Is that an encapsulator? I have some made by Eastwood. It's been holding up pretty well on my Camaro.

I use the Eastwood stuff too. Just be sure to do the welding first as I'm not so sure the metal cleans up well after coating with that stuff. A good quality seam sealer for the seam of your patch repairs is a good idea. Will help prevent water getting into the edge of your repairs.