Beretta.net

As long time members may remember, I've had to do some major cancer treatments to my daily black car's firewall in the past.

Now it's time to do the same to the cars rear. Years have not been good to it, salty winters here sure do the damage.

As you can see, the inevitable end for this car is closing, but I'm doing what I see worthwhile to slow it down. I want this thing serve me for at least 2 years, longer would not hurt.

For the pics:


Here's what's left of the drivers side upper rear spring support, after using power tool to removed everything that's not solid...
This thing was like paper, much worse than passenger side.


Work in progress.
Before this picture, I sandblasted everything, this is with first layer of primer, then there will be base coat, stone-hit protector, cavity wax and underbody coating.

The 100% correct way to fix this, would be removing the whole factory piece and hand crafting replacement to match it.
This will do for what's left of the car's life tho.


I had to cut away the rotten parts, they were not salvageable. The rest was sandblasted.

This area of the car was also done back in 2007 when I bough the car, now it was time to re-do It.. no stopping cancer, just slowing it down.


Power tool found this hole from the trunk


There were rust spots there, fixed them too.
Also I re-did the stone-protector coating on the rear fenders, after using rust-converter paint where the factory paint had chipped off.


Slight rust issue with driver side shock tower. I actually noticed this several years ago... it was just a few spots back then. This is after all non-solid is removed...


Also rot here, sorry for the crappy picture.

Next update will show all this fixed...

Well I'm glad to see your are doing what you can. I've always admired the work that you have done on your vehicles. I look forward to hearing of the progress.

i understand what you are going through, i need to sandblast and repaint my complete rear subframe still this year hopefully! my shock mounts have a few small spots, mainly at the bottom seam, i had another 94 z that had nearly as bad an issue on one of the towers... really weird how that happens from the inside out... sad.

keep up the faith and good work! lol

Next time you are in the states, if you come back to the Midwest Im going to teach you how to weld. lol.

Had to Arc weld those, since that's the only alternate I have to TIG. Not pretty, but functional.

I have under side cleaning/coating on the list of things to do this winter on my car... It's not bad but I did find some stuff that I need to fix/stop now before it becomes an issue like that.

Looking good. The most important part is the frame rail above the spring perch. As long as that's still solid just weld a new perch on and keep driving, as I see you have done.

Did you do the sandblasting? Any Special paint after the fact?

Totally forgot that I had this topic, sorry for much delayed update.

Deezil, Yes I sandblast my self. I'm using rust-preventing primer that's not ment for cars, but to my experience works extremely well. Applied with brush so I get thick coating. After the primer I use paint that is ment for metal roofing.


After primer and first apply of black paint.


After all the layers of coatings, when it gets dirty, it will look just like stock.


I'm still wondering should I build additional reinforcements to shock towers, so this one is still primer only.


These are also waiting for final touch, maybe this weekend.


I installed another one of the spare towing hooks I had laying around, still need to find wiring set in acceptable quality. Btw the european trailer wiring is about four times as complex than US wiring, lot of work...

I do have upcoming non-car project that will require plenty of hauling big and heavy stuff with trailer so this will be much needed then.