pillar roof seam rust repair

[jaywalkker]

Hi guys, looking for an opinion before buying. Have a lead on Dart and of course it had a vinyl roof (now removed) with the seam rust issues where roof skin meets A & C pillars.
I'm willing to learn mechanicals but body work "scares" me somewhat, so wanted to know how bad these are. Some appears pretty surface level but a couple have eaten thru.

Most rust repair seems to center on roof skins and of course lowers, qtrs, wheel well etc. What I have read seems to be use some or all of: sand blast, rust neutralizer, sanding & brushing to clean it all out best you can then use a fiber glass body filler to "hold it down." Sand it, prime it, paint it and call it good.

The rest of car is immaculate for condition. surface rust, trunk pan replacement, but absolutely ZERO rust in lowers or frame. Looks southern/dry garage kept for decades and that structural integrity appeals to me. Just roof worries.

ADDL: this is a slant six, no big blocks going in so not afraid of vibration.

Thanks for feedback! Love the A bodies.

 

[/72Scamp]

I had the same situation on my old scamp. I simply ground the rust down to good metal and used the metal filler from Eastwood to smooth out the seam. Not like bondo so it won't expand or crack.

 

[gerahead]

Jaywalkker, the only real fix is to cut out the rusted areas to good metal and replace what is rotted. Those areas will require the ability to weld and fabricate some patches with some pretty intricate bends. If the rest of the car is really solid, it seems like it warrants the effort to do it right. If you do what you are proposing, the rust will return. L8r

 

[72bluNblu]

Some of that is surface rust, the A-pillars don't look that horrible. Those big blobs in the middle are actually welds, the edges of the roof skin got a short weld right across the pillar. The welds weren't flat, that's why the roof skin and A-pillar tapered down, to create a "low" spot that could be filled. They just used filler or lead depending on the year and top option to smooth it out. There's some pitting there but it would clean up. Needs to be blasted clean for sure though.

The one C-pillar section definitely has rust through though. That will require cutting the metal out and sectioning in a new piece or possibly pieces depending on how bad the substructure looks. That gets ugly because there are multiple layers of metal there, and you'll have to go down until you hit good metal because if you leave any rust sandwiched between the layers it will just come back. You'll probably have to cut back both the top and quarter skin at that seam and replace all the metal in that top/quarter seam to fix that one C pillar.