How to Repair Rusted Body Panels

You can repair rusted body panels on your car by hiring the services of an auto repair technician or do the repair work yourself. When repairing the body panel yourself, clean the surface of the car prior to other tasks like patching rust holes and painting the body panel. Cleaning the surface of the car during body panel repair works entails removing all rust on the panel body.

Instructions

1

Remove rust chips, scales and paint flakes on the rusted body panel. Use a scraper, putty knife or flathead screwdriver to scrape off loose rust on the body panel.

2

Cut-out the panel areas that have rusted through on both sides to remove metal that has rotted away. Use tin snips, a drill or a coarse file to remove about 1/8 to inch of the metal around the rusted-through part.

3

Clean the exposed metal areas. Use a wire brush or 60- to 80-grit sandpaper to scrape the solid metal down to a rust-free shiny metal appearance.

4

Sand the surface surrounding this rust-free area by feathering. This means sand the immediate area down to the primer, then fanning out, sand only down to the paint and then further out only slightly scuff the gel coat. Use 150- to 220-grit sandpaper and smooth out into the surrounding unaffected panel. Sanding ensures you attain a solid bare metal and not metal over rust.

5

Clean the body panel using soap or car washing detergent and water to remove paint chips and dirt. Allow the body panel to dry completely.

6

Read the manufacture's instructions on the package of the body filler kit you will use to patch rust holes on the body panel. A common body filler kit is a fiberglass patch kit.

7

Patch rust holes starting from the inside of the panel following the instructions on the fiberglass patch kit. Normally there is little surface preparation involved apart from cleaning the surface with a suitable solvent like alcohol.

8

Allow time for the body filler to cure, according to the manufacturer's instructions.

9

Apply a paint-over-rust primer coat and complete initial body panel rust repair.