Rust Never Sleeps

Oh oh. I have been noticing 1/4" size and smaller chunks of rust dropping down the insides of my rear passenger door of my 94 SL2 when I close it. The pieces appear to be coming out thru the drain holes at the bottom of the door. I looked under at the bottom of the open door and all looked healthy, no rust. You can actually hear the pieces falling and rattling down when you close the door! I know I probably should disassemble the door, but I am scared at what I might find or that it may fall apart as I disassemble it. Help! Has anyone had to deal with this before. Is there a known part that rusts like this inside rear doors? Does washing too much cause this? BTW, I have power windows and locks. Thanx!

Reply to
marx404
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You should take the inside panel off and take a look. It could be a minor part rusting. You could then spray the rusted areas and at least slow down the decay. MR

Reply to
MR

You're in luck. I have a 92 SL2 and fixed this recently. Your problem is the stamped-metal 'lip' which is under the rubber seal on top of the door. When you remove it, you will likely find what I did: holes and corrosion along the top and (since you hear it inside) gaping holes. I fixed this by first using a wire-brush on a drill (to bare the metal), then sprayed with cold-galvanizing spray (mask all paint in sight!), then some clear lacquer (cold-galv is very soft), and then put the rubber back in place. The rubber fits (in 92 model) in a grove [______] like so - you put in one edge and then apply pressure with a dull butter-knife to seat the other edge. Be systematic and make sure the corners fall in place first. Only my right-side door was corroded!

There is a design-flaw in the 92 year where the bumpers for the trunk hit the area above - my car had a persistently-wet trunk until I noticed that there were stress-fractures on both sides! Each was about

1" long! I think I got some pics from that repair. I cleaned it off (like above), cold-galvanized, then glued on a patch of aluminum tape (thick 'aluminum foil' with adhesive backing). Figure it will keep flexing... so don't want something that will crack. Also now I'm more paranoid about letting the trunk-lid bump open with a bang....

Third flaw is that I have, on each side, 2x ~2-3" holes in the door-frame underneath the plastic step-guard. I think they just drilled those holes (for the plastic snaps) after the treatment and then snapped in the metal clips which were prolly plated with something that caused accelerated rusting? I ground those down, cold-glav'ed them, then sprayed some cheap 'bed-liner' stuff and forgot about them. I can still see the gaping holes beyond the plastic step-guard, but only if I look :-) I'm sure structural integrity is affected... so I've resolved to never keep a car beyond 100K (this one has 135K) and the next with be something year ~2000. L200? Intrepid? Camry? We'll see.

Cheers, Fil

Reply to
Filip Gieszczykiewicz

Thanks, Fil. I feel better about investigating this. I have some rust killer called Right Stuff and also some rust converter spray that I can use. I am so scared that the door structure itself is corroded. Thanks for the info, I'll feel more confident to get into it now. I gotta check my Haynes book to see how the inside door panel comes off with pwr windows.

marx404

Reply to
marx404

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