A very unplesant surprise

[bostogrun]

I removed the side skirts from my e36 because my gasket was puckering. After I removed the skirt, I observed that tons of sand and muck had accumulated around the rubber jack points. I pulled off the jack point rubber disc and found it was full of wet sand and was starting to rust the chassis. Also the rear of the skirts were full of handfuls of wet clay and sand that was starting to rust under the skirt. Fortunately, none of the metal was rusted seriously but it was starting. I scraped away the nacent oxidation and slathered it with POR 15, the only thing that permanently cures rust provided you have some metal left. Don't worry about how it looks it going to be covered by the skirt.

If the sheet metal under the skirt starts to rust around the lift points it will surely spread all the way up to the door jamb and the by the time you observe above the skirt it will be too late.

Although these skirts are not as bad as the infamous e34 door lower door guards they certainly have the potential to foment rust because sand gets trapped under them, that holds moisture and that trapped moisture will cause rust on the actual unibody sheet metal. I throughly cleaned, dried and waxed the panels and treated all the rusted areas and those with rusting potential with POR 15.