# My B14 rust bucket! 6yr old car shouldn't rust out!



## nismoweapon (Jul 18, 2002)

I have a '99 Sentra SE-L with 73,000 miles on it. I live in Northern Ohio where our winters can be bad and they use a descent amount of salt on the roads. I've got some major rust issues on my car.

First let's start with the exhaust. Last winter I had the entire exhaust behind the converter replaced. Not the end of the world. Five year old car; I'll live with it. Now the front pipe between the manifold and the converter is rotting out. Nissan wants $220 for the piece and NOBODY makes it aftermarket! OK. Fine. I settled for cheapo OBX headers for $210 shipped. Problem solved. They're just bolt-on exhaust parts.

Now the body which is what's really getting under my skin (and paint.) The first body rust I noticed was about a year ago. It was along the weld where the rocker panel meets the door sill on the front driver's side. Well now that rust has spread to the point where I almost have a hole where the 'B' pillar and rocker panel area meets just below the front door ajar switch. It's also starting to rust at the base of the 'A' pillar. This past summer I noticed a few rust bubbles forming at the welds inside the tops of the rear door jam area. (Just below the weatherstripping along the roof.) That mild shit I can live with since at least it doesn't make my car look like a rust bucket from the outside. The base of the B pillar is the only thing that needs immediate attention but it's going to be involved since it's structual.

Now what I noticed tonight has really put me over the edge. The passenger side rear quarter panel is rusting right where the rear bumper meets at the wheel well. The paint is bubbling up but not broken yet. I'm guessing that by next Spring I'll have a nice rust issue there and who knows, maybe my bumper will even be flapping in the breaze.

I know these aren't isolated issues. My dad's '97 GXE with 75k miles has a serious rust issue on the driver's side quarter panel along the wheel well. Hasn't Nissan ever heard of rust proofing? Keep in mind that neither of these cars have ever had body damage in the affected areas. This coming Spring it looks like I'll be teaching myself to do some body work. At least good enough to make the car look presentable enough to off it as a trade-in. I'm sorry to say but I think I'm done with Nissans. My 6yr old, 73k mile Sentra has more rust than my 16yr old, 175k mile 325i which has also been in Northern Ohio for it's entire life.


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## callMeYourKiller (Jul 19, 2005)

i have rust in the same places on the body of my 96 sentra gxe in illinois. but its still a good car, it has over 160,000 miles on it and i put at least 2,000 on a month and ive owned it for a year with no problems. im just going to sand off the surface rust and cut out the really bad rust and fiberglass it. i planned on painting my car electric blue anyway. the paint job is just going to come a little sooner then i planned. and the exhaust and header and going to have to wait.


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## Sniper06 (Aug 31, 2005)

^^^ how exactly do you "fiberglass" it? i have exactly the same rust spots in my car. they need to be cut because they spread like leprosy(a skin disease).


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## nismoweapon (Jul 18, 2002)

Well the base of the B pillar can be cut out and a piece of steel should be welded in since it's structual. It doesn't have to look perfect.

However, the rear qtr panel is a little trickier. I'm not sure if fiberglass would work since the rear bumper attaches there where it's rusted. My idea was to fabricate a new steel mount and weld it onto the backside of the qtr panel higher up where it's not rusted. Then from there either fiberglass or bondo the hell out of it to make it look good from the outside.


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## himilefrontier (Jan 21, 2003)

Unfortunately, B14's seem to be rust prone in these areas. I stripped a northern B14 ( 1995 XE) and saw much of the same rust as you described. The metal that manufacturers use now is very thin to save weight and some cars resist rust better than others-it seems the B14 isn't one of them. Mine has no rust, but it has always been a Florida car and salt corrosion is not a major factor here.


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## callMeYourKiller (Jul 19, 2005)

Sniper06 said:


> ^^^ how exactly do you "fiberglass" it? i have exactly the same rust spots in my car. they need to be cut because they spread like leprosy(a skin disease).


they sell fiberglass repair kits at walmart. i got the repair kit my first time fiberglassing but you can buy the fiberglass fabric and the resin seperate and you can get alot more for not much more money. its even cheaper if you go to a marine shop. you shouldnt have to spend more than $20. then i was just going to use an angle grinder to get all the rust off and fiberglass over it. its really easy.

or, if its structural you can go to a junkyard and if you can find a car that isnt rusted you can cut out the section you need and weld it onto your car. its alot easier than trying to bend a peice of sheet metal to the right shape for your car. and i think you can buy a wireless dremel at walmart for like $40 to cut it.

would structural peices be ok to fiberglass though?
that stuff is really stong.


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## LONDONDERRY (May 19, 2004)

nismoweapon said:


> I have a '99 Sentra SE-L with 73,000 miles on it. I live in Northern Ohio where our winters can be bad and they use a descent amount of salt on the roads. I've got some major rust issues on my car.
> 
> First let's start with the exhaust. Last winter I had the entire exhaust behind the converter replaced. Not the end of the world. Five year old car; I'll live with it. Now the front pipe between the manifold and the converter is rotting out. Nissan wants $220 for the piece and NOBODY makes it aftermarket! OK. Fine. I settled for cheapo OBX headers for $210 shipped. Problem solved. They're just bolt-on exhaust parts.
> 
> ...



What do you expect living in the snow belt. My 96 Sentra has the same rust problems living in New Hampshire. The only thing you can do is wash and keep washing the car and just live with the problem. Or you can move down south and forget the snow, but deal with the hurricanes and tornadoes


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## callMeYourKiller (Jul 19, 2005)

LONDONDERRY said:


> What do you expect living in the snow belt. My 96 Sentra has the same rust problems living in New Hampshire. The only thing you can do is wash and keep washing the car and just live with the problem. Or you can move down south and forget the snow, but deal with the hurricanes and tornadoes


you have to deal with tornadoes here too. we had a 3 mile wide tornado hit us when i was younger. but at least there isnt any flooding from it, so its not too bad.


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## callMeYourKiller (Jul 19, 2005)

i was talking to a friend today about how he fixed the rust on his old monte carlo. he just used an angle grinder to get all of the rust off and then put por-15 over the bare metal. then he painted over the por-15 and fiberglassed over that then primed and painted the fiberglass and the rust hasnt come back.
has anyone else used the por-15 stuff? 
its expensive, $22 a pint, but worth it if it can get rid of the rust on my car.


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## himilefrontier (Jan 21, 2003)

POR-15 is great stuff. It's been used by us musclecar guys for at least 10-15 years and it has an awesome reputation! It used to be sold through Eastwood, but I think it's now sold directly from POR 15. They even have a kit using their product and some fiberglass mat to repair pinholed floors on older cars. I have never used it, but have never heard anything bad about it except that it is damn near impossible to remove once it is on the car.


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## callMeYourKiller (Jul 19, 2005)

im ordering a bunch of stuff from them in a couple weeks. its going to cost me $100 but im buying the degreaser, metal cleaner, por-15, the fiberglass mat they sell, and the filler. hopefully it will fix my car. i dont want to paint it and have the rust just come back.


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## Sniper06 (Aug 31, 2005)

when you put fiberglass on the sanded rust hole, do you put them on both sides or just behind then bondo at front?


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## callMeYourKiller (Jul 19, 2005)

you just put it on the front and sand it down.
http://www.hoon.tk/tech_tips/rustrep.html
thats the only tutorial i could find.
its really pretty self expanitory. you just buy the fiberglass cloth, the resin, and the resin usually comes with hardener. you mix the resin with however much hardener it says to use. dip the cloth in the mixture, and stick it to your car. then wait for it to dry and sand it. then add more layers. i usually do like 5 layers, depending on how big the hole is. but it seems like the only way to go if you have rust is to buy por-15, unless you can weld.
in a couple weeks im going to try to take the fiberglass off my car and use the por-15 stuff. hopefully i can get the fiberglass off.


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## Char (Jun 16, 2005)

This topic has now peaked my interist with the POR-15. I have a little rust on my 95 SE-R, mostly where it was hit in two places, nothing even noticable unless you Really look though, but it will spread fast Im sure. Since I need to replace the front and back driver side panels, and my car being PURPLE, Im thinking of repaint anyway. And hopefully by the end of the month I will be living in CA with a friend that is a manager (and getting me a desk job) at a fabrication place. But seeing as Id like to do as much as I can myself.. what all involves replacing a panel (will just buy them from a junk yard) and repainting the entire car, making sure rust wont come back with the POR-15 or any other way.


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## callMeYourKiller (Jul 19, 2005)

im trying to do them same thing as you, and trying to do it all myself. but im just replacing my bumpers (my back bumper was hit and i want a 200sx front bumper) and i want to try to find some 98-99 se-r sideskirts, im going to try to fix all the rust with por-15. and then i want to paint my car. but my car is the ugly teal color, not purple.
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100110&page=1&pp=20&highlight=painting - thats the best thing i have found on painting a car.
i havent bought any por-15 yet but you just use the degreaser they sell, then the metal prep, then the por-15. then you can dip the fiberglass matte they sell in the por-15 and put it over the hole, if it was rusted through. and its the same as fiberglassing.
replacing the rear quarter panels is probably goign to be hard, and expensive, its leaded so it all looks like one peice and the rear quarter panel includes the side roof and i think the c-pillar, its a really big peice. i would try to fix it, if possible.
is the rust barely noticable, or the dent where you got hit barely noticable?


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## Sniper06 (Aug 31, 2005)

can you paint over por-15? i belive its used as rust-proofing. i might need to apply por-15 in my wheel wells and prolly some in the engine bay.


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## callMeYourKiller (Jul 19, 2005)

you can paint over it with tie-coat primer, then you can go over that with paint.

heres everything im ordering if that helps:

TIE-COAT PRIMER™ - Pint $16.00  - after you use por-15 you go over it with this primer so you can paint it.

POR-15® - PINT Clear $22.00  - por-15

Marine Clean® - Quart $10.00  - degreaser

METAL-READY® - 20 oz. $12.95  - metal prep

POR PATCH™ Black $15.00  - por-15 in the form of a body filler for doing small rusty holes/seams

Powermesh Reinforcing Fabric
1 Square Yard $7.00  - fiberglass matte for use with por-15

its about $97 for all of that. plus im going to need to buy a lot of gloves and brushes. maybe ill take pictures when i do it in a couple weeks.


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## Char (Jun 16, 2005)

callMeYourKiller said:


> its about $97 for all of that. plus im going to need to buy a lot of gloves and brushes. maybe ill take pictures when i do it in a couple weeks.


Let us know how it goes.. like I said Im plaining on just redoing the paint job on my car with it since Im starting to see rust. Id rather just do it BEFORE it becomes holes and Id have to do the whole fiberclassing and all.


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