HPE rear wing

[Duncan Martin]

Hi
I have a rusty car that is mechanically fine and I am intending to restore. I also have a car with a better body but desn't run. Both have little holes under the window just behind the drivers door - one has severe rust on the inside of this panel. Can anyone tell me why these holes have appeared, how I can stop them in the future, and alsodoes anyone have a diagram that shows the panel itself? I think it best to swap these panels around if it's possible....
Thanks in advance
Duncan

[Evan Dunn]

Mine too has a hole like this on the passenger side. I have stripped the trim and taken out the side window and wire brushed, rust proofed, bogged and painted the outside of the panel. The pillar has started disappearing from the inside and I'll probably be bogging that up this weekend.

I also have a large rust hole in the sill below this pillar when the two sheets of sill metal join. Can only be one explanation.. leaking gutters.

After I have fixed all the rust in these areas, I'm going to take off the gutters and silicon the f***ers back on.

How were you going to solve it?

[Duncan Martin]

I figured I'd use the pannel from my spares car that is only a tiny bit rusty. Brush and grind back to metal, rustproof and paint it. Fill the hole. I hadn't thought about gutters. I guess I'm gonna have to take them off in order to replace the pannel anyway. But on the other side 'll remove the gutter, clean the area and rustproof and paint, and then silicone the gutter back in.

The sill also has a hole. I guess your evaluation is correct...Evan Dunn wrote:

[Thomas Herbsthofer]

The problem of HPE was bad sealings at the rear passangers windows and rainwater dropping in through the black plastic rips covering the ventilationexits. Badly affected HPEs lost the strucutural strength of their sills and after opening their doors you only very hardly could close them.