[craig baconator]

I had the same experience with my '99. Went down to bare metal, used good quality filler and glass mat. primed and painted. Looked great when finished but rust returned after one winter. But only on the driver side; I thought it might have something to do with the fuel door. Wish I'd seen your solution.

Well, time will tell if it helps or not. I think it would be a lot more helpful on newer cars that aren’t yet victims of rust. Check your speakers in back and let me know if you can get into that body cavity.

 

[craig baconator]

No, I haven’t sealed the roof channels. I’ll look it up, thanks!

I was thinking I should block the holes in the wheel wells. It’s even worse than you can see in the photos. For now I will block it up to keep water from the tires from being thrown in and I’ll redo the area in summer.

 

[craig baconator]

I've now got a Gen 3. Rear speakers are in the rear doors.

Thanks for confirming: my advice isn’t applicable. There may be another way into there that doesn’t involve drilling holes, like covers for the strut caps.

 

[craig baconator]

Well I went to gas up and I noticed it was white around the gas filler neck. The metal at the bottom has rusted through. It wasn’t this bad before. I believe I made things worse using the rust converter. Probably ate right through the rust that was somewhat stable and ate metal too!

I took out the speakers again and wiped out the area, sprayed water and wiped, and put new fluid film.

the metal body bulge around the gas filler neck is in bad condition. It’s quite scaly with rust around the sides. The bottom edge against the outside body where water can collect is the worst. It has a small rust through to the gas cap area, and a rust through to the inside of the body bulge.

Probably it has been made worse by the fact that there’s a hole there where you can see light in the photo and water can spray in. The passenger side isn’t nearly as bad and if there’s an opening there it’s much smaller.

 

[craig baconator]

You could temporary fix it with a fiberglassing kit. It's a bit messy but it holds good. Build up the back with a layer of foli taped with a few layers of gaffers tape (gorilla is the best) the fiberglass resin and mat a few layers in till.it cures. Poor man's rust repair. Just go beyod the rust as far as 6-8".

Foli I take it was a typo and you meant foil. My wife is Korean and she says “we say hoil”. I tell you you say it wrong based on what the first person who heard the word thought somebody said 😂😂😂

I’ve got resin and hardener, just no glass mat. I do have a whole lot of bondo (will be useless I think), and bondo with Kevlar which is much better. I think I’ll follow your advice and do the foil-tape-fibreglass to at least block up that hole for the winter.

 

[craig baconator]

So I put a layer of “hoil” and some hoil wrapped in tape. I put a stop of tape with fibreglass resin and smooshed it into the crevice. It should at least block out moisture. I left the speakers out so the fibreglass resin can cure. My wife won’t be happy about not being able to drive it for a few days 😉
I hope the fumes dissipate enough that when I put the speakers back in the car doesn’t stink and poison us.

The rust on that side is actually really bad. It looks like it has rusted through from below so I suspect this may eventually be the end of this vehicle and I’ll try and fight a delaying action with fluid film. Edit: not sure about above or below. If it came through from below I would be able to easily pole though it but it still feels pretty solid in most places. I think that just looks very black from the rust converter and fluid film.

 

[craig baconator]

After it cures a bit some spray rubberized undercoating to seal.it up would help. But only if you want to be driving to Mars. Lol that stuff is worse than resin.

I do have a can of spray rubberized undercoating for some reason. I don’t use it because I don’t want to trap moisture under it which will make the problem worse.

Since this is my winter car and I have all summer with it in the garage for repairs I’m going to call it good until summer. I sprayed a liberal amount of fluid film.

In summer I’ll have to cut things back and do the wheel well rust again. Now that I see it’s rusting from the inside out, which I figured, I’ll cut back a lot more this time and I’ll spray fluid film in between the panels.

 

[craig baconator]

It is well known that rubberized under coat doesn't work over rust, nor does anything else like oily rust treatments, it may slow it down some but ! Plain and simple the rust needs to be removed, 2 ways to do it. Mechanical or chemical. Then it needs something to treat and neutralize it. Then primer and paint. Special paints can have acids that will neutralize rust and are used for hidden area's like frames and inner areas of unibody's.

Thats a good point, thanks. I’ll look for some paint and it will be a summer project.

The fluid film is intended to slow down the rust meanwhile.

 

[craig baconator]

I blocked the holes in the fender area with rubber. My intention is to keep water from running down in there or spraying in there.

 

[craig baconator]

 

[craig baconator]

 

[craig baconator]

 

[craig baconator]

 

[craig baconator]

Wow sorry to see that. And yes all the holes that honda left open should have been plugged with the average plastic or rubber plugs, even Lexus used to do that. A few bottom holes could have had the plugs that have a sort of flapper drain deal, just incase of water intrusion. Most importantly Honda should have not left the various brackets with unsealed seams.
Too bad you can't find those parts from a non rusted CRV to fix that.

Not going to find a rust-free RD1 in Alberta, and wouldn’t want to take n eat to get the cutting and welding done.