Ford never came up with deacent mud guards for the rear wheel wells. They have gaps that allow mud and crap to be thrown into the rear door post area and the back of the rear quarter panels. Remove the mud guards and clean these areas out. Clean over the lip in the wheel wells. There is most likely rust already started in those area so you really need to use a product like POR15 to convert, stop and seal the rust. POR15 takes a three step process; 1. cleans the surface, 2.prepares the surface, 3. seals the surface and if done according to their instructions will stop the rust. You can read more about the products at
http://www.por15.com.
It a bit of a process, but it is far superior to undercoating. If you apply undercoat to a surface that already has rust, it will continue rusting under the undercoat
/emoticons/
[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> . Order their catalog, it goes into more detail on how to use the products. Just to make it plain, I don't sell POR15, I don't make money from them, I don't work for POR15. I'm just a very satisfied user of the product.
The story is the same for the tailgate. You have to get in there, clean out the rust and then seal the rust, especialy on the bottom edge. Clean out the cauck that Ford put in the bottom crack where the inner and outer skins overlap. Tail gates are notorious for disappearing from the bottom up :-& .
Another area is the front wheel wells and the lower rear corner of the front fender. The main problem with the edge of the wheel wells if failure to keep the mud cleaned out of them and the fact that Ford did little to nothing to prevent them from rusting. I have my own ideas why they didn't, you can't sell new cars and trucks if you make the one you are building so it will last forever. Cars and trucks were built to last 5 years
so they could sell you another one.
Sometimes the rust is too advanced to stop and in that case you need to cut it completely out and add new metal.
Oh yah, I made new mud guards for mine that keeps the mud, water, and crap from being thrown into the rust prone areas. Attachewd is apicture of the new guards next to the old ones. I don't have good picture of them in place, but they don't let crap past them. I constantly check on the areas that are prone to rusting.
Good luck,
>-
28292[/snapback]
