Rust

[Guest]

I'm rubbing down the arches on the fiesta, going to treat them and then "under coat" them this weekend hopefully.

Obviously I'm going to clean and rub down the arches to get rid of much surface rust as possible. Should I use any kind of "cleaner" to degrease the arches prior to priming them? or will a good rub down, clean, rinse and dry be sufficient.

In my experience, fiestas have been horrendous for rusty arches. so wanna get on top of this befor it spirals lol.

[BigD]

It's not just Fiestas - every Ford has been notorious for rusty arches.

I did the arches on my Focus (and my Escort, and Fiesta) and never used any kind of degreaser. All I did was rub it down, get a bit lairy with the Kurust, then filler, sand, prime, paint, topcoat.

The problem is the 'lip' at the edge of the wheel arch - it fills up with dirt, which gets/stays wet, and causes rust to eat through from the inside - not helped by the stupid carpet wheel-arch liners used on a lot of Ford which serve little purpose other than to hold even more moisture. If you have rust on the outside then it will almost certainly come back at some point. All you can really do (short of replacing the whole panel) is repair it as best you can, then treat the inner wheelarch with Waxoyl to repel water.

[Guest]

would removing the liner help? what do they actually do?

also.....do you know much about the rear bumper: -

http://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/54381-mk5-52-plate-14-tdci-rear-bumper/

[Nighthawk]

They're mainly to reduce road noise and stop stones chipping the paint. A good regular jet wash will keep the dirt from building up.

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