I just got my car painted and I am getting bubbling paint adjacent to the door handle on the body (see pic #1). I think this is a common place for 914's to rust - what would be causing this? It looks like I am getting bubbling paint on both sides in the same place! Anybody have experience repairing these? Is this an indication of a prior repair job going bad? Any insight would be appreciated ...

Either poor prep or the evil rust devil

Rust underneath, no doubt, no question. Take off the rear wheels, get a flashlight (head lamps are nice) and a screwdriver and start poking out the gobs of seam sealer the factory sprayed up there. Over time the seam sealer separates from the metal and traps water. Get as much seam sealer out as you can, treat the rust with a rust converter (MetalReady) and coat it with paint. THEN and only then get the panel repainted.

BTW, there is a similar situation at the rear, just above the tail lights. Now would be a good time to take care of that problem area too before it starts bubbling paint.

Just wondering.
But wouldn't the painter have removed all of it before painting?
Thinking of haveing mine repainted because of rust on the pass side.
Don't want to run into the same problem.
John

If the owner did the prep then no, if the owner requested the rust repaired then

yes.

This was a car that I purchased already primed, so i was not sure what all had been done. The prior owner did say he fixed the tailight issue, but never said anything about this. I just had the engine out and repainted and rustproofed much of the rear? Will need to do some poking around and see what I find? I did pull the vent cap in the door jam, which is just below the bubble and it looked clean? Crap! the car was almost to a point where I could drive it regularly? It seems to be bubbling fast - hopefully I can wait until Winter!

Anybody have a cut-away of this section? After poking around there is a slot ~1-2mm by about 12 in. that is all rusty. After cleaning it up it seems I can poke a hanger up there that runs up inside the sail panel. This looks like the area I need to rustproof, but not sure how to get up inside of there without major cutting?

Here's a picture. It does have access all the way up the sail panel.

Mark - Thanks, this will help. Still not sure what I should do?

From what I can see, it looks like rust under bondo. The only way to know for sure is to break the chunk of bondo out with a screwdriver and see what's under there. If there's no hole all the way through the metal, you'll be OK if you just fix the outside, if it's all the way through, you'll need to cut some metal out and weld a new piece in. You don't have to do anything right now, if there's no water getting in the rust won't grow that fast, you can fix it in a few months. Talk to the shop that painted it and see if they have any paint left, they might have enough to repaint the quarter & sail panel.

Have the paint shop add some blendeze into the paint, it works well.

I'm the DAPO. I did the drivers side taillight area, and the drivers side by the door handle. I welded in new steel, and had it all as perfect as I could get it. There is some bondo, but it's just to even it out. When it was put down there was solid steel. This area tends to rust from the inside out, and I'm wondering if the problem is recurring around the area I patched. I actually used thicker than stock steel, and it was galvanized. I even put por-15 on the underside, the best I could. The passenger side was in good shape when I had it, so I didn't mess with that area except to weld up the sail trim holes.

Sorry about the rust, I did the best I knew how!

Wasn't there someone making inner fender shields that would help keep water out of this area? I'm starting to think they should be mandatory on 914s.

That's depressing. Royce seems to have done all the right things but it is still bubbling? It seems to in the center of the common patch area too. Vance you gotta take that boil off and see what is under. Maybe you get lucky and it is just something to do with the paint job.

check that - maybe take the car back to the painter and have him remove the boil. That way there is no debate if it turns out to be bad prep.

Royce - Don't worry about it! Sounds like you did it right, just one of those things. I suspect on these cars you are forever chasing this stuff down? I assume this is double layer sheet metal here - cause the metal looks fine from underneath? Hopefully it is just surface stuff? Another item on my "to do" list!

It's just a single layer, but there's alot going on in there, with that little tube, and the sail panel internals all interfacing around that area. It's further complicated by a factory braze joint, the foam, and all the water that gets flung up there by the tire.

On the V8 conversion I'm working on I'm cutting the fenders entirely off, and burning out every trace of that foam. Then it gets soda blasted and epoxy primed. I may even make myself some water shields. It's going to be my daily driver, and wil get driven in the rain.

Are you sure that is rust? It looks like a paint "boil" to me. Poor prep work maybe? I would pop it and see what's under it.

Here's how it looked in 2003: