Rust bubbles.

It's happening on both rear quarter panels above the tires. This truck is extremely clean otherwise. Obviously I am gonna have to get it to a body shop to be fixed but how can I prevent this? I really don't wanna do fender flares unless I have too. If the truck sees salt. I wash it immediately. Bought the truck 8 months ago and it was 100% rust free. If these trucks rust this fast that's unreal. It's a 2004 BTW. I am gonna be bullet proofing the truck with in the next couple months so I would like to keep it clean so it lasts me a long time.

Cory my 06 only has about 85,000 miles on it and I am in northern Iowa. I am the second owner and the first owner lived in St. Louis and that is where I bought it from. Mine very rarely gets drove in the winter. Mine looks like new yet. All the ones from here all have big rust holes in the rear fenders. They trap dirt and salt in the seams above the rear wheels. The best fix for the ones up here is to put a takeoff box on them. Most of them just get run to the grave. In ten more years you will be able to buy a 6.7 for $10,000

BS Hauler said:

Cory my 06 only has about 85,000 miles on it and I am in northern Iowa. I am the second owner and the first owner lived in St. Louis and that is where I bought it from. Mine very rarely gets drove in the winter. Mine looks like new yet. All the ones from here all have big rust holes in the rear fenders. They trap dirt and salt in the seams above the rear wheels. The best fix for the ones up here is to put a takeoff box on them. Most of them just get run to the grave. In ten more years you will be able to buy a 6.7 for $10,000

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As in just put a whole new bed on it?

Yep. Easiest way. Or find a take off in good condition. They're out there. Only way to avoid it altogether would be to get the foam out of there the day you buy it. Although from what I could tell with mine that would involve body work as well because it looked like the foam was rolled inside the fender metal.

dsberman94 said:

Yep. Easiest way. Or find a take off in good condition. They're out there. Only way to avoid it altogether would be to get the foam out of there the day you buy it. Although from what I could tell with mine that would involve body work as well because it looked like the foam was rolled inside the fender metal.

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I'm hoping a body shop can cut it out weld new in and paint it for cheap. We will see. I'll do whatever it takes to keep this truck rust free.

Good body work isn't cheap. There are a couple shops around me that can do better than factory paint work on older vehicles like mine and yours but there is some extensive work to be done. When they paint they strip all the pieces that aren't being painted off the vehicle from the areas that needed to be painted and blended. There's no tape or masking involved. There's none to minimal body filler used. All that work ads up to $$$ but gets you the best results. I'm getting warranty work done and I'm staying away from one of the shops because not all of the damage is going to be fixed because it's existing. It's just panels, I'll have a good set to bolt on already color matched in a few months. Since they won't be fresh painted I'm hoping the color fade will match pretty well. I don't want that on them when I'm asked who did the work.

There's a saying around here, cheap isn't quality and quality isn't cheap. I'd ask for some options from the shop. You may be better doing full bed sides not just a patch panel. All depends on what you're after and what they say.

dsberman94 said:

Good body work isn't cheap. There are a couple shops around me that can do better than factory paint work on older vehicles like mine and yours but there is some extensive work to be done. When they paint they strip all the pieces that aren't being painted off the vehicle from the areas that needed to be painted and blended. There's no tape or masking involved. There's none to minimal body filler used. All that work ads up to $$$ but gets you the best results. I'm getting warranty work done and I'm staying away from one of the shops because not all of the damage is going to be fixed because it's existing. It's just panels, I'll have a good set to bolt on already color matched in a few months. Since they won't be fresh painted I'm hoping the color fade will match pretty well. I don't want that on them when I'm asked who did the work.

There's a saying around here, cheap isn't quality and quality isn't cheap. I'd ask for some options from the shop. You may be better doing full bed sides not just a patch panel. All depends on what you're after and what they say.

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Yeah I'll get some quotes. New quarter panels are roughly $400 a piece so there is $800 then they need put on and painted.

Once you get it fixed there's a couple options you could do. One would be use a bedliner on the insides of the panels. Another is a product called fluid film which is a spray on product. I believe it wears off over time though. Mainly you need to keep water out of the inside of that fender somehow.

I take the caps out of my bed and power wash it from the top and then from the bottom. Once you get it good clean and dry you can apply something like fluid film, wd40, oil, something. I personally wouldn't bed line the inside, if it gets moisture behind the bed liner you will be worse off. If you keep up on cleaning the wheel wells and put something on them a couple times a year you will be fine. As for the bed right now you oughta get some OEM fender flares to cover them up the rust and paint/ oil the crap out of the rusted spot. at least it will buy you a year or so.

Been down this road already. I chose to keep my bed and cut out all the rust and weld in new metal. A buddy of mine helped me we knocked it out in a day. Be prepared to make the support panels in the back as well as the bedside. Both are pretty easy if you have a shrinker/stretcher and some time.

Sorry for the big pics, I'll admit I'm just too lazy to resize them at the moment.

That looks good. That's what I would like to do vs a new bed. I'll get some quotes around town. I have multiple friends that are welders but no bodywork buddy's.

I thought I had more pics of the rust bubbles but I can't find them right off hand but here's one I took to compare to what you have. This was the worst rust area I had (driver side, the first pic from my previous post and the area my buddy is working on in the second pic).

If I had to guess, I had 3-4 hours in making patches, and then we had another 10-12 hours in cutting out rust, making the patches I missed (mostly inner structure panels), welding it all back together, doing the rough body work, and covering it in 4 coats of surfacer. This is not yet ready to paint as it will need some more body work for that. However by the time you paint it you can have 20-30 hours wrapped up in it pretty easy and at $50-$100 an hour plus materials you're up into the 4 figures pretty quick. This is why most guys opt for just buying a new bed.

I went this route because I already had all of the supplies and tools and the knowledge I didn't have my friend did (he's a professional hot rod builder, I pay him by the hour anytime he works on my projects). I went this route because at least I know we got as much of the rust as we could. A different bed would have just been a gamble. There is foam between the inner/outer body panels and is a guaranteed rust mess in this area of these trucks. Damn you Ford!