While cleaning and conditioning door gaskets, I found a line of rust where the bottom of the door panel meets the inside of the door. It's just plastic on painted metal and it seems over the years of opening and closing, the sharp plastic panel has rubbed the paint off and moisture has found metal. This is worse on the driver door, but it's present on the passenger side door as well. This is very similar to how the tailgate handle trim rubs the paint off the tailgate. If you open your door and kneel down, take a look under the door panel; hopefully it's not as bad for you yet! A foam/rubber strip here would have been smart.


I must say the fit and finish of details like this on my R50 is superior to the R51. Don't get me wrong, my R50 is a "Rustfinder" with the horrendous quarter and fenders rust caused by the flares mounting, but I didn't expect the R51 to have taken a step back in this area. The tailgate handle cover should have a gasket/spacer between it and the tailgate (which the no longer posted TSB that was raised for this issue addressed) just like my R50 has here- a black rubber gasket between the paint and plastic handle:


But the R51 lacks this




As I have to paint my peeling roof gutters anyways, I will tackle these inner doors, and the tailgate as well, then remediate the door panels, and the tailgate handle.

I got to sanding, priming, and painting the rust off my doors and tailgate this past week.

I used my often useful Dremel to sand down all the rust and pitting out, then some high build primer and finally some Dupli-Color “Perfect Match†spray paint, Silver Mist K-12 in my case. It’s close enough and I’m fully satisfied with it, but it’s not a perfect matching color which I think only a shop could deliver. This by no means needed any more expense than the 20 bucks worth of rattle cans that got this job done for me.

Here are some pics of the prep, first pic is the first sand where the pitting shows. I did sand all those spots right down so it was all shiny metal, 2nd pic is primer, then paint, and completed job on the doors. I added some felt strip to the doors, as well as shaved down the offending door cards a bit to prevent this from reoccurring. This took about 2 hours total time giving the paint some time to dry with the doors open afterward and I only put the felt on and door cards back on the next day just to be safe.

Considering the pitting I had, I recommend you check your doors now. If you have no rust now but see the paint is wearing down, just shave those edges down a 16th or more and add some felt/foam anything as a preventative measure.

A clear, plastic protector...like the kind they use to prevent chips on the front end of cars...would probably work there.

smj999smj wrote:A clear, plastic protector...like the kind they use to prevent chips on the front end of cars...would probably work there.

Yes, it definitely would and nowhere as ugly as the felt strip I used on the doors.

I also repaired the rust spots in the tailgate the same way. I removed the handle and found another water leak in this process, this time in the left most handle's bolt. Here's some shots of nut holding it and the rust that formed on it and around the bolt and tailgate opening. This was a slow and active leak, where if left unattended would lead to a nasty rust repair done by a shop. I didn't know it was present until I took the tailgate apart, but I'm sure glad I found this now!

I recommend taking the tailgate plastic off, 2 7mm screws in the first aid kit pocket, and a 10mm bolt at the pull down handle, pull out that handle pocket, rest is snap on clips, have the glass open so you can pull off then slide the plastic cladding up and off the window latch. Peel 2 sound deadening plastic bits off the tailgate. Easy.




It hadn't rained in a few days, but I did have some drips of water pooled on the deadener:


Here's some pics of the tailgate after removing the handle, which was 4 10mm nuts and then 2 snap clips holding it in place. Unplug the connectors for the unlock button and trunk release switch in the handle.






With the handle removed, I sanded down the rust spots very carefully with small sanding wheel on my dremel, removing the rust to arrive at clean shiny metal, primed, and painted. I also then applied thin strips of 3M Automotive double sided tape in these spots so that the handle will never rub the paint down ever again.


I used my dremel to sand down the offending spots just a little to accommodate that 3M tape, about a mm.


Since I had a water leak in one bolt, I also added some rubbery foam stripping over each of the 4 bolts and then silicone greased around those 4 bolts for good measure. These things should never leak and it annoys me to no end that something simple and preventable with a quality gasket wasn't done. My 2 cent fix here will do it.




Finished product, visible if you crouch down under the tailgate handle to look at. Some fiddling may help tidy up the 3M tape a bit more but you get the idea. No more rust here.

Good job! I will save this thread for future reference.