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2000 E46 318ci Can I deal with this bit of rust myself??

3K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  willh 
#1 ·
as above, is this do-able? if so, can anyone give me a step by step?

thanks
 
#2 · (Edited)
Fixin the rust is the easy part mate. It is the painting that is the problem. Unless you blend the paint in well and then laquer the whole panel you will notice the fix easily. The going rate around here is normally £100 a panel.
Good luck :)

Class--
 
#6 ·
Had exactly the same on my E36 328i, most of them go that way eventually! If you catch it now at least you can hold it off!

The cheapest way is to sort this yourself, and given some time and patience can be done well.

Ideally remove the rear bumper to get at where the panel folds over. The underside there will be worse than what you can see on the side.

Prepare the surface by picking off the rust and paint with a wire brush if it's bad enough, or just some coarse wire wool.

Work the surface down with various grades of wet and dry paper from coarse down to very fine, until you're left with a patch of clean metal, no rust, and a flat surface with no chips, flakes or scratches visable. These will show through the paint if this step is rushed!

If you're not going to do the whole panel (probably not worth it as it's so small currently) you could mask off the rest with tape and paper. If the area is slightly larger you might prefer to just leave the panel unmasked and just be very careful with where you spray.

If you mask you will be left with an obvious line that'll need to be buffed back to blend. If you don't mask you will spray a larger area which may be more obvious if the colour match isn't 100%.

Spray your chosen area with a few thin coats of primer, making sure you don't start or stop the flow over the surface itself. Move the spray can in a smooth motion and don't stop over the area at all.

Once each layer is dry (as quick as 10 mins or so if it's thin) buff back with fine wet and dry and repeat for each layer.

Once you have a nice flat primed area you're ready for paint!

Using the same process of thin layers and prep between layers, spray the paint (ensuring it's an exact match by quoting your paint code to your paint supplier).

Once the paint is complete add some lacquer coats as above.

Buff the whole area down with very fine wet and dry paper to ensure the blend between old and new is ok, and move through levels of polishing until you're left with a perfect repair undetectable to the human eye!

I have tried this many times and failed horribly. The theory is as above but the real key is having the patience to prepare the area properly!
 
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#10 ·
thanks alot for the detailed reply mate!

so, how exactly should i buff the new paint to match the old then? its only really this blending of the paints ie making them match that i'm not too sure about, the rest seems to be do-able! i think i'll be going for the masked off option as the visible rusted area is so small.

thanks alot.
 
#17 ·
Sorry for the delayed response!

It's really down to the new paint exactly matching what's there. Even if the join is seamless if they're different colour's you'll still see it!

Get yourself a circular buffing/polishing jobby from an auto parts shop. You can work through grades of abrasive paper to flatten down the surface during layers of primer and paint, and this'll be the tool to buff and polish the final layers of paint and lacquer to remove the "edges" that'll build up where the masking ends.

It's all about prep and patience really though - good luck with it and get some photos up if it goes ok!
 
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