Spent quite a bit of time cleaning up my rust free car's front wheel well. What I found may or may not be some surface rust. I think if anything it may be surface rust, but I'm willing to clean this up and see.

My question is how to do this so that it's original, but I'm not looking to make it a complete strip down and paint as the majority of the surface is virgin.

The car has factory undercoating, and I do have some of the Wurth original grey undercoating that appears to be viable.

I could clean up the corner (affected area) to the metal, verify condition, and if no repairs are needed, re-shoot the small section with the undercoating, and blend into the inside well.

@rick 918-S

Thoughts?

I do have this car up for sale, and want to add value, not things to redo.
I do really want to go to metal so I can prove it really is rust free. So far this is the worst I've seen.

This area

The black is a tar like very hard material that will come off with steam.

I would leave it alone unless you want a project.

@mepstein is rarely, if ever, incorrect!

I’d leave it, as some may see any effort as a cover up. It looks super clean as is.

I would wire wheel it and touch up the paint with a good match. That is preservation, not restoration.

I'll bet it's ugly in there

LOL! My wife would so disagree.

Just drive down a freshly tarred road and call it good

There is no such thing as “just surface rust” on a 914.
Especially in that weld flange.

Leave as is. Let next custodian decide. As previously stated, any attempt at “fixing” it just looks like a cover up attempt. Fresh undercoating on a car for sale is a red flag in my opinion.

I saw the ad for this car - very nice indeed.

Clean the area so you have a good sense of the issue then leave it alone. Let the next caretaker decide how to resolve to their liking.

I’m gonna have to agree with his wife.

But really , we tend to agree on many things…..

As the car has the factory undercoating, I'm betting that it's in pretty good shape. There is no other rust on the car. Poking it with an ice pick, it's solid.

As I'm trying to sell the car with no rust, I'm leaning toward cleaning and if it needs it, repairing it properly.

My thought process is that
1- I do drive this car, so I don't want to leave it
2- Leaving it also leaves questions as to condition
3- The factory undercoating has been amazing everywhere else, so it is my belief that the damage is surface. None of the seams are split, and it looks like it's just the 100k worth of driving that has abraded this area through the undercoat and paint.

Gonna give it a few days to think.

To quote SirAndy; "There are no rust free 914's. Keep looking; it's there"!

Thoughts & Counter points:

There is no such thing as 100% rust free. Any serious 914 buyer knows this. This is true of all cars that pre-date modern corrosion protection like Galvaneal steel and e-coat. There is always rust between weld flanges and inside cavities - even if it’s only light surface rust, it’s there. These cars were not dipped so there was no way to get full rust protection into cavities.

1- I do drive this car, so I don't want to leave it.

It has survived this far as is. Additional driving on dry unsalted roads isn’t going to hasten the rust anymore than it has over the course of the last 100,000 miles and 50 years of time. A little rain water or car washing isn’t going to corrode it anymore than would have occurred thus far with the undercoating or paint having been pecked away by road debris.

2- Leaving it also leaves questions as to condition.

Not really. It is what it is and it can easily be observed as such. Once you “fix” it, then there will be more question as to how well it was fixed, what is being hidden, and what might be lurking beneath any new undercoating.

You can minimize some of that concern by thoroughly photo documenting anything you might do.

In my opinion, the value in the car is that it exits as-is. Looks like a super platform for a full bare metal restoration. Fixing a little spot here or there doesn’t really add value. To play devils advocate, “fixing” it doesn’t take away anything either. Still will be a great candidate for a full restoration.

Yes, on the #2 point, it definitely MUST be documented. Whatever is done.

As far as rust free, yes high carbon steel is not known to do well.. what I’m trying to convey is, it’s in the top1% as far as rust is concerned.

It is super clean. But this kind of makes me want to address this.

My plan is to clean up the other side now and check its condition. If I were to do one side I’d do both. I do have the ability to address these if they were to be worked than they look, properly.

Even treat what you can with some Ospho, paint, done and drive.

looks wonderfully rust free to me. Wire brush, touch up with POR15 followed by touchup with a brush in the cars original color. That will keep it preserved

At some point during its death spiral, this 914 had exactly as much rust as yours does right now

Click to view attachment

The protective covers for the front struts? Where are they? Once you start to address and touch up the small surface rusted areas, you never know where it will end. No dash and go. Disclose and leave that matter for the next owner. GLWTS.

If I were a buyer of this car, I would want it fixed. Nice car, I wish I could afford it.

Fixing stuff costs good money. And you more than likely won’t it get back. If the undercoat is solid to the ice pick test you don’t have to be destructive to find out what’s up. First piece of new metal, originality goes out the window.

Curiosity finally got the best of me so I decided to examine a little further. My thought process is that....... If I'm selling a car that is as rust free as it can be, I can't leave a big question-mark here.

That and the rest of the car is so clean that I couldn't imagine there was anything more than surface rust.

Turns out the undercoating is very thick. When I 1st started cleaning I tried a little acetone. I'm pretty sure the "brown" coloration that looked like it could be rust was where I took some of the tar material into the undercoating with the acetone.

My plan is to clean this up with walnut shell blasting and apply some of the NOS Wurth factory undercoating and repaint feathering it in. Thankfully it looks like it is still viable.

I will be documenting as there is no rust actually being removed, but There is enough "damage to it" that I should put it back to factory in this area.

On another note. I know the Wurth will set up like a rock if left exposed to oxygen. I was thinking that I might want to open it in a "tent" I could fill with nitrogen, and seal it back up very tight. I will plan to do both sides at the same time but this shouldn't take much material at all. I just hate to waste a whole can.

Phosphoric acid to properly convert the rust. Eastwood fast etch is the highest concentration I’ve found.

I wonder what Dr Evil's laser would have done with that...

I want one of them bad for restoration work such as this.

Just disintegrate the paint and undercoating without touching the metal.

Black MAGIC!

@mikey914

Is this the car you flew down to look at and I dragged up to you in Oregon by tow bar? It’s pretty fookin clean…

It belonged to a PCA member in Reno who sold it to the owner of EBS in Reno, which was started by the guys who used to work at the Porsche parts distribution center in Reno. The owner of EBS helped me hook up the tow bar.

Yes, and since it spent its life in the desert, and has been garaged, I figured it wasnt rust.

Today's clean up went better. Not that I have a plan to attack the areas that needed to be cleaned up. Still have some steam cleaning to do, but went well. Covered up the metal with a little acid etch primer to keep it from getting surface rust. Will finish steaming and cleaning before I attempt to re-coat and try to blend.