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Body shop for rust repair in NoVA?

N8N_99xj

NAXJA Forum User
Hi all,

I hope this is the right place... I tried to find a chapter map and am not sure if Virginia is considered "North Atlantic" or "Southeast..." anyway I have a '99 XJ and finally got some lift time over at my buddy's shop yesterday to start removing the rear bumper and skid plate in preparation to install the Rigid bumper that's been sitting in my basement all winter. Unfortunately I found when I removed some of the plastic trim pieces that there is some rust starting on one of the quarter panels where you can't see it with everything installed. I have not yet started chipping away at it to see if it's coming from the outside or the inside but I'm just assuming that it's rusting from the backside of the panel and therefore will need welding and that I can't just hit it with POR-15 and be done with it.

Due to the weather (I thought it was spring, and it's barely 40 degrees outside?) I simply can't seem to find any free time to paint it when temperatures are in any way suitable for painting. I'm not looking for anything fancy, more just a good coat of DP-90 and I'll finish it with Krylon at the shop later. (it sounds ghetto, but really, it's a Jeep. If I use semi-gloss black Krylon, if I scuff it up I can just hit it with a Scotchbrite pad and respray; no harm no foul.)

I'm in Sterling so the closer to there the better...

thanks for any leads!

PS - I was just explaining to the mechanic at the shop yesterday - young kid - why you don't buy cars from Pennsylvania. If I'd only listened to my own advice... but really, other than this one spot, it appears completely rust free other than surface rust on the underbits, which I'll hit with a spray can next time I can get some more lift time. I do think I probably should take all the fender flares off for an inspection though... Why though do fasteners rust faster than anything? It took me about 3 hours to get the original rear bumper off, two of which were spent fighting with two nuts in really poor locations so I couldn't use air tools. I never did get the skidplate off, I will have to grind away two bolt heads - and really a muffler shop doesn't have a 4" hand grinder? WTF? - and I've destroyed one of the factory nutstrips - fortunately easy to replace and I already have replacements.
 
Man, my poor Xj is rusting out from under me. I've decided to do something similar
To the 'cut and fold' on my quarters, but since they are so rusty l'll have to cut them out altogether and replace the sheet metal. I have several holes in the floor as well, so I'll get lotsa practice welding in sheetmetal.
Also, it looks like mine was taken to a shop for rust repair before for the quarters, and they simply riveted in some galvanized crap(which is rusty again), ground down the rivets, and bondo'd the crap out of it. It probably looked good when they first did it, but now it looks like a fresh bag o' assholes. Needless to say, I'd make sure you know HOW a shop plans to fix your rust, or you may be looking at the same mess 5 or 10 years down the road...
 
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