It's inevitable that many of us are going to encounter our fair share of rusty panels when it comes to building a hot rod, truck, or street rod with 50-plus years of harsh use on this planet. Areas prone to collecting dirt and debris are especially susceptible and tend to be the first spots that start to rust and inevitably chew their way through the steel.
It's understandable that the underside of fenders, which act as huge catcher's mitts for any and all road debris kicked up by the tires, receive the brunt of said abuse. And, since most automobile owners rarely clean the underside of their cars, it's no wonder the debris has a chance to gather and cause such detrimental damage. With a large area of the country under snow during those long winter months, the salt that has a chance to gather in those hard-to-reach places only magnifies the possibility that those pristine Deuce fenders you picked up at the swap meet may actually have quite a bit of rust damage under that seemingly cherry finish.
We ran into that exact situation when we started stripping the fenders on our '52 Ford F-1 project. The truck had been bombed in charcoal black rattle-can and looked pretty straight until the fenders were sanded down to bare metal. With the paint and Bondo removed, it was very obvious that whoever did the bodywork had done a pretty good job simply covering up some trouble areas way back when. Any area that could gather dirt and debris did, and the result was a cancerous patch that would need to be repaired.
Years of constant use and neglect also left the underside of the fenders covered in a nice, rusty patina that would also need to be treated. Given their reputation of solid rust repair options, we contacted the Eastwood Company to help us treat, repair, and add an ounce of prevention to our F-1.
