Help: Corrosion on right door hinge post

[tknoebig]

Hi everybody,

I have a corrosion problem with my right door hinge post.


when I looked inside the right outer rocker of my Porsche 911 Targa 1973.5, I found some rust.



I cleaned the section with a brush and found out that the rocker itself seems to be o.k.


The problem is the lower part of the door hinge post, which is inside the outer rocker. There is a hole in the post, which has a diameter of 2 inches. I cannot take a photo of the hole, because it is inside the rocker. The rest of the door hinge post is o.k. (see photo).


Cutting off the outer rocker and reparing the door hinge post is very expensive and time consuming. Here is a photo of the repair I have to do:


The rest of my baby is hardly any corrosion. This is the worst section.
Does anyone have an idea how to solve the problem without cutting of the outer rocker? How can I stop the corrosion?

Thanks in advance,

Thomas

[MTemp]

I cannot think of any way you can repair the bottom of the A post without removing the outer sill/rocker. That said the outer sill to A post joint and the A post to inner wing joint look sound so I don't think you have a significant structural integrity issue. There fore I think you could delay removing the outer sill to repair the pillar base for some years by some rust treatment. Any good rust neutraliser/encapsulator will work. Personally I'd go for some form of phosphoric acid based rinse (metal ready or similar) followed by POR 15 rust encapsulator, using a spray or brush through whatever access you can get. Clearly this will in no way fix your problem, just slow the rate at which it becomes a necessity.

That said I VERY much doubt this is the only rust on the car.......take a close look at the kidney bowls, rear parcel shelf and rear seat bases for a start. Good luck!

Mick

[Porboynz]

Well you can simply remove that section of the outer rocker, not the whole thing, then weld it back, but there will be other rust as Mick says. Its inevitable. That area of the door pillar is not critical so if you can live with it stop the rust with liberal doses of a suitable product plus stop the leak that caused it in the first place. Could be a blocked or non existant drain, but my bet will be water getting in via the front wheel at the top of the guard, missing rubber grommet etc. Mine had rusted right through to the heater duct.

[tknoebig]

First of all thanks for your replies.

Today I took a pic with a mirror:


I guess about 40% of the lower section of the door hinge post are "infected". And maybe also the metal sheet behind it. However, I will follow Mick's recommendation: I will leave it like this until I have to do some more repair on this part of the body. I will use a rust encapsulator to stop the process for some years.

Here are some pics of the "critical" sections of the rest of the car:









You see: there is still work to do! I will start with the hole in the left outer rocker.

Thanks.

Thomas

[pksystems]

Looks like your inner rockers have started disintegrating.

You won't really be able to tell until you cut into the outer rocker. Mine was ALL bondo, so I knew there was a nightmare hiding behind it.

From what I could tell when repairing the bottom of the hinge post...

On my car it looked like the factory didn't seam seal the edges of the hinge post. The top corners near the windshield primarily. Water could seep into the post, and because it was a cupped area at the bottom, the water had no place to quickly drain out. This started rusting out the panel behind the post, aswell as the post itself. These areas looked to be bare steel on my car.

When I remade the cupped area at the bottom of the post, I made it a triangular shape, with the tip open to the bottom. This allows any water that gets in that area to drain into the hollow area behind the outer rockers. The outer rockers have drains stamped into them every 12" or so.. The open bottom also allowed me to spray rust paint into the area after the repairs were done.

I will be going crazy with the seam sealer once everything is done on my car

[arry911]

I would repair it now while the cars apart, it will need doing later and you are painting the car and you dont want to be doing this after having the paint done.If you was not painting the car i would just treat it but you might as well fix it now.

[Rot 911]

Originally Posted by arry911

I would repair it now while the cars apart, it will need doing later and you are painting the car and you dont want to be doing this after having the paint done.If you was not painting the car i would just treat it but you might as well fix it now.

I agree with this advice. In the big scheme of things, this repair is not going to add a significant amount to the rest of the restoration.

[cnielsen]

Originally Posted by pksystems

I will be going crazy with the seam sealer once everything is done on my car

Body cavity wax is your friend to prevent the rust from coming back.

[Porboynz]

Once the jacking points are unusable due to rust you have to do the outer and inner rockers. My restoration took 10 years for various reasons, so I am not a leading example, but do consider the cost fun ratio. Do enough work now to halt or slow corrosion and get your car back on the road so you can enjoy it, or, break the bank and fix it properly at the risk of over capitalising and removing the fun aspect. Difficult choice.