N/S/R Wheel-arch Touch-Up

There's always been a few bubbles in the paintwork just behind the near-side rear wheel-arch, but they have grown a little bit over the year. Last week I pressed the blisters a bit and dirty water dribbled out so I decided it was best to act on the corrosion fast before the worst of the weather hits. I really should lacquer the work I did in June on the off-side rear wheel-arch when I finish this side off too, it shouldn't have been left so long - the paint is holding up so far, but best not to chance it with frost round the corner.

I started by carefully breaking the bubbled paint off with a sharp knife. The paint and primer had bubbled clean off the metal panel and was quite tough to break off still, but a few weak spots were obviously letting nasties in and there was just a little rust beginning under the lip at the bottom. Luckily the panel itself was holding up pretty well and wasn't showing any signs of actual rust, but there was lots of black pitting that went down quite deep into the surface.

I then rubbed down the area about an inch around the corrosion with 140-grit paper to get rid of the paint. The black pitting was a different story and it took quite a bit of rubbing with emery-cloth to get down the clean metal. I was still left with a few deep craters, so I managed to eek out one last mix from my tube of P38 filler and did a thin skim over the whole area to make sure even the smallest pits were filled, before sanding it flush to the metal. I then threw on a quick coat of zinc-primer and sanded it flush with some 600-grit Wet/Dry paper soaked in slightly soapy water, so I don't get panty-lines in the paint. I did start spraying the silver-coat on Sunday, but got a bit over-zealous and the paint ran something awful. Its back to work I go too, so I'll have to give it a quick rub down and finish the silver-coat next weekend, as well as lacquering this and the other wheel-arch - lets get some closure on the spray-work!!

More detailed descriptions of the rubbing, filling and painting processes can be found in the previous posts Painting the Bonnet Lip and Re-Inventing the Wheelarch Pt. I.