What do i do about the rear window rust through?

[Shawn MacAnanny]

I've stripped the entire car to bare metal and primed it, interior is completely out sanded down, stripped, and repaired floor pans rhino lined (car was absolutely perfect minus driver floors pans from water getting in from bad window seals) toe boards are perfenct. When we took the carpet out over top of the seats its like brand new never seen something that looked so preserved. Anyway I removed the rear window because i know it has a bad window seal and i could see rust holes around it.



There are rust holes down the sides of it where it attached to the quarter pannel and I'm not quite sure how to fix this. The only thing i can think of is to bend new metal and tack it over the holes but then i would also need to install new trim clip tabs right?

I put new sheetmetal on the quarters, and the floors and all so sheetmetal isnt hard for me to do i was just wondering if there is any kit or something out there for this fix. I would imagine it's pretty common.

[z4me69]

do not tack new metal over the rust you are not fixing the problem. cut the rusted area out them make a patch for it i .had the same prob on one of my 69s as far as the studs for the clips go they make them that screw in .

[Shawn MacAnanny]

How did you patch it? With a 90 degre bend or did you go over and around into the interior? I would assume that would give you the greatest stregth. You are right it makes much more sense to cut the whole section away and just make a new one rather than to try to cover over. That's what we did with the floorpands but i was seeing the clips were going to be problematic.

[68nate]

I had a local shop spray weld mine. They blast out all the rust and then use a spray welder to repair. Check out www.rustbusters.com

[Shawn MacAnanny]

How much did it cost you? That's a very interesting method

[68nate]

Cost me $350 to sandblast and repair around the rear window, front windshield, one spot on the bottom of the drivers door (sat with water in it), and front floor pans (sat outside with leaky window seals), and fix a couple small holes in the trunk pan. Car is unbelievably solid otherwise, just 40 years worth of water intrusion. I am extremely happy with the way it turned out and the price!

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Ok I've found the most effective, the cheapest, and the easiest way to fix this. I can't believe how well and fast it worked. I'll upload pictures later as my camera died as i was taking the last few pictures. When you see the size of the rust hole you won't believe i was able to fix them!

The product is a steel type epoxy. Everyone has used it. It's most commonly known as Gas Tank Repair Putty. Yes that is what i used. It's marketed as "Quick Steel" at places like Wal-Mart nad Ace Hardware and such. It's a tube about 3/4" around and 4" long. Gray putting on the outside with black putty on the inside and you just mix it by kneading it with your fingers. This stuff is amazing. You can actually drill and tap this epoxy, that's how hard it is. It took me 3 tubes to fix my entire window. It's sandable, grindable, paintable, and drill/tappable within 1 hour. Total cost? $14.94 to fix my window...

What i did is mixed up 1/5 a tube at a time and make little "sheet"s of it the same width as the hole. Smeared the top of it to the quarter pannel and then worked the bottom with my thumbnail to the window seat area. It didnt even take my 30 minutes to do all this. In 5 minutes it was hard enough to add a second coat where it had been recessed into the holes.

I'm gonna wait a full hour to make sure it's all cured then go out there with a dremel and sanding wheel and grind down the high spots. I know some of you will chime in and say i should have just replaced my entire roof clip or made patch pannels but seriously asside from replacing the entire roof i dont see how anything could have worked this good. It is never going to rust. It's over an 1/8" thick of a material almost as strong and more flexible than steel. It will look just as good if not better than a patch pannel since it can be grinded down to perfection on just the areas that needed the patch.

Now i just have to find the window seals. Any idea where i can get the window seals? Or is there a kit to make them? I'm sure i cant just use some sort of weather stripping RTV because it wouldnt put the window at the right height and center wouldnt it? I'm not really worried about possible leaks against the surfaces i just want something to hold the window in strong. When i put the trim on i plan on using Lexel to seal all around the window to make sure there are no leaks.

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Wow, $350 isnt bad at all for all that work.

[Shawn MacAnanny]

And here are the pics , this is before sanding and grinding of course.

[70bird]

And here are the pics , this is before sanding and grinding of course.

Are you going to put a lot of money into painting it? If so, I would suggest you first treat that rust that is all over the insides of those panels and the roof as well, or you may be REAL disappointed in a couple/few years.
JMHO, Mark

[Davezz28]

That type of repair will work in the short run, but in the long run it will just rust around the edges of your patches. The underside/inside of the panels still have active rust and that rust will continue to consume the metal. You will eventually get rust out areas around your patches.

If you are just tring to patch and go, you need to neutralize the rust and seal the inside so oxygen and moisture can't get to the metal.

I would have treated the rusted areas with Pixlex or Rust Mort to try to neutralize the rust and then paint the inside of the panels and repair job with Zero Rust or Por 15. This way you patch job will last a lot longer before the repair fails.

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Well i did my best to wire brush the rust away. I also got it all ground down, added fill where needed, sanded it and painted it. It looks really good. I know it's not a permenant fix. Neither is the sheet metal on the floor pans or the quarters. This car is going to be my DD and my driveway is a 1/4 mile gravel/dirt road so really nothing is going to stay perfect. It's getting cheap paint i've decided rather than painting to match the sunset oranage matallic/black 94 Z i have.

They make full fiberglass shells for camaros so i was thinking about eventually sticking on one there with a really nice cage setup. I really dont see any type of permenant fix for this window than to replace the entire roof clip which just seems like alot of expensive unnecesarry work. This isnt something i plan on selling as the car was indirectly inhereted from my grand parents. I can make the window not leak, and make the trim cover up and imperfections so i'm not too concerned. The front doest have a single spec of rust on it. And mostly everything we sanded down to bare metal and painted.

It's painted on the oneside and will have lexel sealing the window and all so really it can only rust from the inside out. Hopefully it'll be a few years down the road when I'm bored with the car and feel it needs a revamp.