Repainting Fender

[jey]

So I spot a tiny bit of rust on the exposed metal on all the scrapes on the driver's side fender of my car, so I decide to undertake the adventure of repainting my fender.

Unbolted the fender from the car today, and noticed that a lot of the BOLTS (and the holes that hold them) have rust too. Am I correct that I should deal with this in some way? I figure the metal areas I can sand down and primer. What do I do with the bolts themselves and the rust there? While I've got the thing out I may as well touch up everything.

(Discovered a bunch of other interesting things too - like the inside of the fender has a VIN sticker on it :lol:)

[Huffer]

The holes you can drill out larger, and then use new bolts. That's fairly extreme, the easier thing to do is just get new stainless or zinc bolts.

[Okin DaVanh]

The holes you can drill out larger, and then use new bolts. That's fairly extreme, the easier thing to do is just get new stainless or zinc bolts.

We usually drill out one side of the broken bolt, remove the rest with a pick and re-tap (if needed) Which most of the time we don't have to. Or, if you have enough of the bolt exposed, soak it w/ WD40 a day ahead, the try to remove it with vice grips. Our cars have a welded in nut on the inside of the rail that receives that bolt. If you drill it larger, it might - might not hold a new bolt. Some times that nut brakes loose when you put a larger 1 in. When you install the new bolts, use what Huffer said, stainless/zinc ones.


As for the VIN tag, don't sand it off. Just mask it, and remove the tape right after clear coat (so it won't lift.) Looks alot cleaner and helps identify it as OEM.