Doing Body Work On the Subaru

I think too positively. 

Subie showing rust sickness.

It has been pestering me for ages now.  My beautiful Subaru being eaten away by rust!   It's sad watching something you love slowly deteriorate.   So!   Time to play Mr. FIX IT!

Small sections here and there. 

After watching hours of Videos on YouTube,  I  waited for the moment I had an entire week off so I could tackle such a HUGE problem.   Subie has several spots all around his hubs where he needs attention before it gets really bad.    But the WORST part was the driver's side rear wheel hub.

And then there is this part...

Not only is it becoming worst,  I have to look at it every time I enter the car.  It reflects badly upon my love for Subaru.  Time to show everyone just how deep my love really is!

It is becoming structurally unsound.

Let's get that bumper off. 

To be fair,  I knew that this was going to be the most challenging part for the task.  I foolishly thought I may be able to finish it in one day.   WRONG!   It has taken me two FULL days just to get this far.

First,  I had to remove the fiberglass rear bumper to get to the area.   This was a challenge, since several of the plastic rivets were difficult to access.   I ended up taking the entire rear lights and extras off just to get to the bumper clips.

Using the Dremel to cut the bolt off.  

And then there was this small bolt that had rusted to the frame.   I ended up having to cut it off with the Dremel.  I would have to rebuild the small nub that the bolt connected to as well.

The cancer is worst than expected.

Imagine my dismay when I discovered that the corrosion was all the way behind the bumper as well.  This was turning into a serious job!  My hopes that it would be an afternoon project were quickly becoming dashed! 

Even on the other side! 

As with most things,  set the goal small and eat the elephant one bite at a time.  For day One, my goal was to get as much of the rust off as I could.   Thinking back that I originally wanted to stick only to hand sanding seems like a pipe dream!  It would have taken me forever!  Luckily, I purchased a couple attachments you could fix to a drill.  For the most part,  I think the mechanized tool helped.

I had to use screen to build structure

Fiberglass is as strong as metal. 

I would like to think that I got most of the rust off.   I simply do not want to think that I misses some small section and that will undo all of my hard labor.  But I was running out of sunlight.

End of day one.  Still need to attach bumper.

Day two!  Sanding!

I patched up several holes with some metal framing and pressed in some BONDO Fiberglass.  I guess this is supposed to be stronger than metal.  I let it dry overnight.

And then BONDO Gold.

And then MORE sanding.

Today,  I started again around 11:00 AM.  Let me sum up the last 8 hours...  Sand smooth, BONDO, Sand smooth, BONDO, Sand smooth...  you get the idea.  I had to build up several layers of BONDO each time to fill in the gaps.  I finally took a piece of cardboard and held it in place to allow the BONDO to dry where it needed to .  I wish I had thought of that sooner.  I would have saves several steps. 

Fan helps, but it is hot.  

Finally!  And cardboard Idea!

In addition to the Bondo woes,  I had to deal with bugs,  Humidity,  Heat, and the BONDO setting up too quickly.   I guess the heat is a factor... along with the hardening agent.  I was adding just a drop and it was still setting up in less than 5 minutes!  I was beginning
to run out of materials.

Beginning to take shape. 

But finally,  with the help of the cardboard idea,  I was able to get some traction and finish the BONDO part.   Time to get to sanding.   Again!  Very slow going.   I had to employ the drill several times to smooth out the hills in areas.

Final sanding,  500 grit sandpaper.

In the end,  I stopped at 500 grit sandpaper.   I figured the Primer

would fill in the small larks left by paper that fine. 

Finally,  Apply that Primer...

Finally!  The Primer.   I ended up putting two coats on.   And that was all I could muster before calling it .  It is currently 8:30 and I finished about an hour ago.   Now all I need is the final paint coat.

Time to reassemble the car.

Done! 

I had to reassemble the rear end of the Subaru.  All of the tail lights, bumper clips, and plastic snap sections.   I will end up removing all of that stuff again when I get to the paint part.  Oh the fun!

Let's get that Wheel back on.

Finished! Still needs paint though. 

Cheryl asks me why I did this project so extreme.  Maybe because I love my car.  Maybe because the neighbor has a similar problem with his van... and chose to simply spray white paint over the rust.   IT looks TERRIBLE!  He is young and his van is kinda crappy to begin with.   Probably not worth the effort to try too hard.  But I drive a SUBARU!   I have to reflect a little pride.

Before!

After!   2 days of effort!

So is it worth the effort.  Well,  I like it.   It was a LOT of HARD WORK.  The YouTube people fool you into thinking it is an easy task.  I wonder how many days it took them to do their little project.  Or maybe it was my lack of experience that slowed me down.   I would like to think that the remaining sections will not take as long to complete as this one did.   We shall see.

As for now,  I got a lot of sun,  lost a lot of water, and ache all over.  Time to relax with a cold beer.   I think I will tackle the remaining sections next week....  maybe.