Help fixing this door rust

D

dekeman

New member
Hi all,



I've got an interesting rust problem on the edges of the doors of my '03 Mazda Protege. It has progressed slowly over time to the point where I can't ignore it anymore. The worst is the driver door, but the rear driver's side is also bad. The passenger side, oddly enough, is barely rusty. The problems are mostly on the lower corners on the inside, and extend the length of the inner door channel under the door panel. Behold:



This one is the worst, and it appears the rust is beginning to get scaly (not to mention bubbly as I look at it-ick).

dsc_0334.jpg




The rust extends under the door panel in the little channel you see:

dsc_0335.jpg




dsc_0339.jpg




dsc_0340.jpg




The rear driver side door- not quite as bad:

dsc_0347.jpg




Here are the products I have to deal with this:

dsc_0349.jpg




I had planned on knocking some of it off with a wire brush and going at it with the Mar-Hyde, then the Rust Encapsulator, then the factory touch up paint-in-a-bottle (that isn't pictured), but I think RE needs rust to bond to. So is a better route to just sand down and knock off the bubbling, then Rust Encapsulator, then paint? Want to get ahead of this as I need to ship out again with the Army (I'm on some leave from overseas and I saw this and can't ignore it).



Thanks for any advice that may help!
 
dekeman said:
Hi all,



I've got an interesting rust problem on the edges of the doors of my '03 Mazda Protege. It has progressed slowly over time to the point where I can't ignore it anymore. The worst is the driver door, but the rear driver's side is also bad. The passenger side, oddly enough, is barely rusty. The problems are mostly on the lower corners on the inside, and extend the length of the inner door channel under the door panel.



Thanks for any advice that may help!
Click to expand...



There is your problem. If you saw that the rust was forming why didn't you do something about it then? If you notice it early it is a whole lot easier to deal with.



Your plan sounds about right. You need to get rid of all the rust from the surface before you paint it otherwise it will come back. I use Rust-Mort on my vehicles and it works great. It is about $35 a quart though.
 
Man, I don't know that I'd attempt to repair that. That's not topical rust. Do you think you can stop that :think:



From the perspective of pure aggravation, aren't you better off getting a new door and swapping panels? Maybe search for a door from a bone-yard??
 
SilverCivic said:
There is your problem. If you saw that the rust was forming why didn't you do something about it then?
Click to expand...



When I noticed it, I had moved from Northern NY to VA after a deployment, and was getting ready for another tour by myself in Korea. Life has been hard enough without attempting body work I have no idea how to do.



Not sure about replacing the door, but from your replies I'm not hopeful I can slow the rust down enough to save it. It may take a few more years, but I suspect that what you haven't said- the rust will eventually take over the door- will occur sooner or later.
 
dekeman said:
It may take a few more years, but I suspect that what you haven't said- the rust will eventually take over the door- will occur sooner or later.
Click to expand...



Nothing to apologize for if you were in NY. Stuff like this happens all the time. David ran a search for you. I didn't look at it, but have to believe you can find a blue door in good shape and get it shipped to you.



Return the Eastwood products. Move on and enjoy the car :) Mazda makes a nice car.
 
dekeman said:
Not sure about replacing the door, but from your replies I'm not hopeful I can slow the rust down enough to save it. It may take a few more years, but I suspect that what you haven't said- the rust will eventually take over the door- will occur sooner or later.
Click to expand...



Pretty much. The only way you could possibly fix that is to take the skin off the door, replace the rotted metal of the inner structure, and re-skin the door. Not really worth it on that car.
 
As you stated Charlie, pull the hem flange back, clean it, apply an acid etch primer (replacement for ecoat), surface prime and followed by repaint.

And go the one step that Mazda stopped doing in the early 90's, after all the work, apply an ASTM-117B speced anti-rust, wax based to the inner cavatity, and it is good for years and years.

If Mazda's bean counters would have allowed this in the first place (the anti-rust-wax based compound) to all the inner cavatities, no problem today.

E-coat, like all paint products, will crack and the bottom of door flanges is the first place this takes place.

Plus, the car was in N.Y., etc, where the mag cloride is used in place of cloride salt, it's tough for the factory ecoat, etc to keep it from happening.

All that Eastwood stuff is just a band-aid, not worth the time and money.

The factory warrranty is expired, and it only, like all the others, covers "manufacturing defects" for time stated in the owners manual.

It could be cleaned and sprayed with the ValuGard Rust Inhibitor and that will slow it down, since the corrosion "creeps" into the flange areas and it stops or reduces the continued corrosion of the hem flange area.

Must work or Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Ford, Chrysler, etc would not require the product to be used on all collision repairs of their vehicles that are covered under their factory warranty.

Grumpy
 
Could this still be covered under warranty? Don't some cars now come with really long rust warranties-- 10 years?



Adam
 
Hello,



I've made some headway in placing a band-aid on this to slow it down before I head back overseas with the Army til the summer. I know I'll likely need to replace this door in the future; I'm doing something about it so my wife doesn't have to worry about a rusted out door while I'm gone. I have read all your replies and appreciate all the great information. I've elected to abrade away all I can and leave enough for Mar-Hyde rust converter to penetrate. From there I plan to coat twice with Eastwood Rust Encapsulator, then paint over and clearcoat; I've gotten as far as the rust conversion. I have figured out what I assume to be the hem flange on the bottom of the door, where the outer skin folds over the inner door. The corrosion is centered here; what I assume is a hem flange sealer caulk is covering the joint, and the road spray leeched underneath the sealer:



mazda-rust-002.jpg




I've left some of the sealer in place where it seems to be firmly bonded, but looking at the condition of what I removed makes me think I need to remove all the sealer under the door and treat accordingly:



mazda-rust-003.jpg




Am I correct? Would hate to regret not doing this right while I'm across the globe while my wife deals with my poor decision. Also, how would I reseal the hem flange before painting? This was likely done by a robot at the factory, so my repair would be a little less pretty, but hopefully effective.
 
Anybody have any ideas about that hem flange sealer? I've gotta go back overseas in a week and thus don't have much time to get it done. Thanks for any help you can give.
 
dekeman- I really don't think the flange sealer will make much of a diff.



I hate to post this, so much so that I almost didn't...but I too think you're pretty much wasting your time.



I'm a big fan of the Eastwood stuff, but I also have first-hand experience with how some Mazda door bottoms rust out. I really don't think this is gonna work. Even my usually good bodyshop couldn't stop it on my Mazda (and they *did* fix the same problem on my Jag and it's stayed fixed for decades).



Do what you can with what you already have and start thinking about finding a door if you want a permanent solution. And treat that replacement door before you install it or you'll be right back where you started after a while.
 
Thanks Accumulator. I was afraid of that. I'm gonna go ahead with my plan so it at least stays ok while I'm overseas, and when it starts to rust through again I'll put another door on it. What a disappointment.



I still have not been able to find out how to replace a hem flange seal. I know there's gotta be a way.
 
dekeman said:
Anybody have any ideas about that hem flange sealer? I've gotta go back overseas in a week and thus don't have much time to get it done. Thanks for any help you can give.
Click to expand...

In order to stop or slow down the corrsion, you MUST get a cavatity wax "inside the drain holes" by a fogging process.

A ASTM-117B approved/speced product must seek out bare metal, replace the water/moisture away from the areas "inside and in the hem flange", protect it from corrosion. A product that meets that spec has to "seek and creep" at least 3 mil into the seam/flange while displacing any moisture from the bare metal.

Spraying stuff on the outside is like waving your thingy in the wind.

The issue started on the inside of the door, the flange opened up a very small amount and allowed corrosive compounds to enter in that very small crack and start eating away.

Covering from the outside is NOT going to take care of the issue.

Grumpy
 
dekeman- figure out how to get the door's upholstery panel off so you can get inside it.



IN THE ABSENCE OF THE PROPER STUFF AND EQUIPMENT (yeah, that's a nod to you, Ron ;) ), I'd probably use Eastwood's stuff for doing the inside of frame rails. You might use the stuff you have, but I don't think it will seep/creep into the seam the way you need it to.



Then maybe spray what you have down in there too. Between that and what you can do on the visible/out side, I probably wouldn't worry about the seam sealer. BUT ok, IIRC POR-15 makes a putty version of their stuff that *might* do what you're after. Sorry, I don't have anything better to offer, don't think Eastwoods flange/etc. sealer would help.
 
With the fogging method, no need to remove the door panel.

Take a look at the training video on ValuGard's site.

Shows everything.

Grumpy
 
dekeman said:
Cool- thanks Accumulator. That had crossed my mind actually, so I'll give it a try.
Click to expand...



I thought about adding to this thread a few weeks ago but never got around to it. Better late than never, I hope, I'll chime in.

Even though a lot of the replies here amount to "this is basically hopeless," well, I'm trying to retain a little optimism about what I did to some door rust on my car a few months ago.

The car is a 2004 Acura TSX, which I've had since October 2003 (bought new), making this its ninth winter. I live in Massachusetts, so it's been subjected to the ravages of road salt, and those ravages wound up being primarily evident in the horizontal seams at the bottom of both front doors, down by the drain holes. The problem was worse on the passenger's side of the car: maybe a foot of rusty seam there, versus 6 or 8 inches on the driver's side. For a few years those sections of seam were just bumpy: there was obviously rust under the paint, but only in the last year or so did it break through, in places.

Back in November, I decided to attack the rust, and my approach was much like what the starter of this thread said he was thinking about trying. I already had a rust-conversion product and Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator, so I figured I ought to: use a wire brush to get rid of most of the rust, then apply the converter, then apply Encapsulator, then apply paint. That's what I did, and it turned out pretty well. If I made any mistake, it was probably removing too much of the rust with the brush, leaving little for the converter to convert. Consequently, I wound up putting Encapsulator over converter that still looked primarily white (the conversion process is supposed to turn it black.) Once those coats had dried, more or less, I applied paint, but NOT my Acura Nighthawk Black Pearl touchup paint or the black single-stage Mazda paint I still have from my dozen-plus years of owning a 1990 RX-7. I sometimes think the single-stage, non-metallic Mazda paint is better for touchups job on the Acura, like touching up stone chips. What I DID use on the door seams was Rustoleum Gloss Black Protective Enamel, which was recommended to me by a local body shop operator, who thought it might be more protective and durable than automotive touchup paint. Because mine is a black car, and because the seams are largely out of sight, I didn't hesitate to go with the Rustoleum -- three coats, with light sanding between coats. My wire brushing of the seams removed some loose seam sealer; at the body shop operator's suggestion, I didn't bother replacing it. He thought there was little point.

Anyway, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. With the between-coats sanding, the paint is pretty smooth, and I think I achieved good coverage on the rusty areas. I hasten to point out that this winter -- crazy mild and pretty much snowless -- has kept the roads largely salt-free, so the durability of what I did certainly hasn't been put to a tough test. (Believe me, I'm not complaining.) The body shop operator who gave me advice cautioned me early on in the process to be realistic -- to expect to have to redo the job every year or two. But it seems to have held up perfectly so far, so I'm thinking I might just get lucky and have it last for three or four years, and maybe even longer. (I'm probably jinxing myself with this optimism.)

And I should clearly note that the rust on the OP's doors was much more severe and widespread than on mine.
 
rx280- Glad to hear it's working out so well! Yeah, while I'm not in *any* way :argue against the "proper approaches", the "convert it, seal it, hope for the best" approach can sometimes work out OK.



That's basically the same thing the guys at Stoddard did on my Jaguar's seam rust. That was back in the early '90s and it's still 100% OK. Yeah, *100% OK* after all this time. No, it didn't work on the MPV's door seam rust, but hey...worth a shot if/when you don't want to "do it right".



dekeman- Since this thread was last active, I checked the POR website, and their putty-like stuff is called "PORPATCH".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top