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Fender replacement vs rust repair?

DayOff

Full Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Messages
32
Wondering if anyone's gone this route...

Have an '04 with Silver Birch Metallic and rust on the front and rear LEFT side wheel wells edges, and moving fairly quickly up the fender.... I dropped by my local paint shop and got a quote for $800 to do a 'quickie' repair of the front/rear areas, no guarantee....or $1000 to cut it out with new metal and repair the front/rear, with a minimal guarantee (it was months...nothing extended).  They say what happens is the rust doesn't come back where they repair it, but you'll see it later, higher up on the fender.  That may be BS and just a way to give them an out when they do a minimal repair...but that's another conversation.  I'm sort assuming they're going to do a quicky job regardless.  However, I don't want to spend $3k on fixing paintwork, either... as it's not the only thing on this car with rust consideration.  The right side is showing a couple bubbles, so if it's like the left side, I'll be dealing with this same issue next year...and then I'll be back at the shop for the $1k repair on the right side.

Has anyone simply replaced their front fender with a freshly painted one, or taken it off and had it repaired completely?  I'm curious if that was a viable option...the fender go for around $340 unpainted, and it shouldn't cost too much to get it painted up.  But it seems like a more thorough way to go on the front fenders... Was it a big job to swap the panels, if you went this route?

The rear is a different story, but I wouldn't mind spending more to get both rear's cut out and repaired (perhaps by a bit more trusted shop)...

Thanks!
Pete
...in Michigan, in case anyone has a good shop in the Detroit area
 
Sorry for the double post... couldn't get it to post, now I have two... (and can't delete either)
 
It depends on how bad the rust is, my front fender has surface rust with bubbling paint I just sand it down to bare metal and re prime and paint it but it does come back each year so far. Now I was under the AV this week and I saw the dreaded rust under the cladding by the rear door don't know what I'm going to do about it yet. Hopefully someone makes patch panels for cladded AVs.
 
MS03 2500 said:
Hopefully someone makes patch panels for cladded AVs.

If there is, I didn't find any after hours of searching.  However, my neighborhood body guy was able to fab some repair panels that look pretty damn good just out of sheet metal.  Still a work in progress, but you wouldn't BELIEVE how just a little bit of visible rust went halfway up the cladding, and almost to the front door when he started cutting out the rust.  :mad:
 
Yeah I'm pretty sure that is what I am going to have to do also. I have to pull off the cladding sometime and see how bad it is.
 
patch panels:
http://chevyavalanchefanclub.com/cafcna/index.php/topic,146955.0.html
 
All I saw there were upper fender patch panels, my problem is the lower fender behind the cladding.

Guess I'll call them and ask.
 
I was cleaning my 2005 2500 and noticed after having this my 2nd. Av for 10 years
In the front door jam there is a flap made out of fabric maybe 5x3 inches wide so I pulled it back and the area behind it was full of leaves!!  I cut myself up picking out as many as I could and realized there is an area behind the wheel well at the bottom that is a big leaf trap I went to a car wash and pressure washed under the hood close to the firewall but could not really get down there real good and also went in behind the flap at the car wash  a LOT of leaves washed out but I'm thinking a lot are still in there and also thinking of maybe drilling about a 2 inch hole in the sheet metal wheel well once I find a good plastic plug for whatever size hole I drill. This trap for leaves has to be a potential rust problem. My av is a 2005 2500 cladded of course.  If any of you guys would look for this flap and let us all know what you find maybe we can find the right trick to be able to keep this area clean and prevent rust This is my next av project and want to prevent and protect my av  because it is here to stay I want to keep it FOREVER. .......GOT CHANGE
 
Heres the link to the patch panels.http://www.cooltruckparts.com/pc_product_detail.asp?key=F40C4D9E79D44FFBA3227F86B431C129
 
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