What do you do with them ? I noticed a couple on my back wheel arch (02 bugeye)

Do you let them develop and burst into full blown rust - then fix , or jump in now and fix asap ? Thing is , as long as the paint holds its not noticeable (yet). Is there a way of just fixing the affected area ? Its on the corner where arch meets bumper.

 

I would take out all the boot linings etc and have a look at the arch from the inside.

If you have bubbles on the outside, it's likely to be spreading from the inside out. Take a look ASAP, but it might not be pretty.

 

Its not good news once ye see it on the outside, as said it comes from inside out. But defo sort it sooner rather than later as it will get more and more to sort.

 

Sort in what way though , cut out and repaint ? Either way its a repaint job isnt it ?

 

Yeah, cutting it out is the only way to do it properly. Have a word with scoobyride on SI, he has just done his.

 

Just had a look , there is one tiny bubble at the wheel arch side and another from inside the boot . Its in a quiet complicated area , basically below the petrol flap.

 

If you intend on keeping the car, I would get it to a bodyshop for them to cure the rust on the inside, then sadly for a proper job it would be to repaint the whole panel on the outside.

You can get local "Chips Away" type repairs done, but that will only be a rub down and blow in, never really a permanent repair. It is an option however.

 

 

Stick your hand up into the inner arches right up to the top where strut mounts, and start pressing all around & pray you dont put a hole through it

 

Aye those pics show it going right along the seam.

 

See the yellow line is (roughly) the inner seam. I have a bubble to the left of the line (which is visible inside the boot) and a bubble on the right (which I can feel from the wheel arch).

Whats involved in fixing that ! Alot I imagine ?

 

Subaru basically ****ed up the design and production of the car in this area. Or certainly on the classics anyway. After many many hours looking at all the panels I have found the following:

1. If you take the top of the suspension turret (inside) as a sqaure box it is welded in with overlaps on all four sides. Three of the over laps have the higher part on the outside so water and mud can't run into the seem. The outer side of this square section has that seem so the higher part goes behind the lower part. This leaves a nice line of seem for water to run into and fill with crap. This rusts and lets rusty water into that area. All the seems in that area then start to rust.

2. Some of the seems are sealed with seam sealer. This sealer is put onto bare metal and then the primer at the factory is put over it. If you peal the seam sealer off you find the bare metal underneath has rusted along the seems whereas all the areas that got primer straight on the metal have not.

Now you could say that Subaru only intended the body work to last five years or so but it seems like a bad design to me.

Either way as the others have said if its outside then there will be a lot more on the inside that you can't see. The only way to fix it is to chop out that part of the arch and anything behind it in the chassis until it has all gone and weld in new metal and then obviously respray that wing blending in into the doors.

A spare front wing can be cut to provide the right shape arch edge to weld back into the rear.

If you try to just repair that rust bubbles it will only last five minutes. Believe me I tried twice before looking into it deeper and finding all this crap. If you google it you will find examples where most of the inside of the bodywork in this area is destroyed by rust. Yours probably won't be that bad.

 

I hear ya , but either way it's a chop out rust and repaint , whether it's a small bit or a big bit. Ist it worth the damage and expence now ?

 

interesting.. my 06 has a couple very small bubbles in the same place. must start poking around and get it sorted. have enough rust to deal with on my 25 year old BMW already lol

 

Ah rust a complete ballache! I had my classic sorted alot of work do it sooner than later

 

How are you planning to fix this? cutting out the rust and welding new stuff in seems an expensive move.

I have the same rust inside the boot of my 02 bugeye and trying to repair it with min costs.

 

I'm ignoring it until it is beyond putting up with !

 

would it not be worth sanding the inside part on the seam and then covering with some hammerite to help stop it getting worse? obviously making sure its completely dry first

 

This will do nothing other then hide it. Hammerite is not that great anyway. Look into proper rust preventing treatments such as bilt hamber.

How do you fix it cheap? You can't. Unless you are a professional and can do it yourself for minimal costs.

It's like saying how can I buy something for £1000 with only two quid. Simple you can't.

You can rub it down and treat it with rust preventing products then paint it. But if we are talking about the outside then you will need a proper paint job which will cost a few £100 anyway. But even then within a year or less it will bubble back again. I had mine sanded back to bare metal and professionally painted with a patch on the other side. It lasted about 3 months before it bubbled and then got worse then before.

The only way to stop it properly is to cut out all rust and weld in new metal before doing a proper body repair.

Any half measures won't last long and the car will rot underneath and be harder to fix in the long run. Depends on how long you want to keep the car for....

 

I had a single bubble on my drivers arch, ended up cutting outer panel and inner arch and having new metal welded in and repainted. As said above it starts from the rectangle panel in the upper arch or the fuel filler neck (as in my case) and water runs down and sits in the panel seam.
Think I paid £400 for the drivers side to be fixed. Passenger side is rust free and will remain that way hopefully now I have rust treated it.

 

just so you know what you will find !!!




this is my nearside rear wheel arch. All that was showing on the arch was a 15mm straight bubble along the edge. Bad bit was cut out and new welded in