How To Repair Structural Rust Damage

greetings viewers eric the car guy here and thank you very much for tuning in today and you'll be very happy you did if you have structural damage on your vehicle due to corrosion that is exactly what i found on this 2003 honda pilot and i've come to find that the problem i found is quite common to these vehicles as well as ridgelines and we might as well throw the acura mdx into that since all this pilot is is an acura mdx without the leather the problem is one of the mounting points for the rear subframe rots out and this is a structural problem and honestly if a customer brought me this car i'd tell them to look for another vehicle that said i intend to repair it in this video now i'm going to say that i'm not a master fabricator and i'm not the world's best welder but i do believe i can get through this repair and make something that is structurally sound so that subframe has something solid to mount to that's my intention of what i want to do in this video now i've already removed the rear suspension and everything else which i'm going to cover in another video which when it's available i'll link it down in the description all we're going to focus on here is that structural repair and i'm done talking so let's get to working on this problem and fixing it before the time this video is done i've done some poking around quite literally and pulled this open a little bit more yeah that is actually secured further up where these spot welds are you see up there there's like a plate that appears up in this area that this center piece that the bolt goes into goes into i kind of want to preserve that it this is almost cosmetic the way it is around the outside it's not necessarily structural because the uh plate that holds the well the fasteners up in here so i think i'm going to start by doing is just cut around this area and observe the damage in here what i may end up doing is cut the entire thing out and then rebuild the outer structure and then use that to support the inner structure if it's still good this wiring harness is kind of in a way where i want to cut so i'm going to try to sneak in under it undo these clips after peeling away more layers of this onion it's more solid in there than i thought with my original plan the fastener would have been right here beneath the surface but it looks like the threads don't start until way up inside this piece and i have a feeling i know why they did that because they want the bolt to be able to stretch and move this is a suspension it is going to move in flex and if you make things rigid in a situation like this they can break you want them to move a little bit so i have a feeling they did this with those long bolts like i said the threads don't start until you're in there quite a ways and i have a feeling that they did this so that this whole thing could move around that makes me rethink my thought of putting a nut on the inside of here not saying that that wouldn't work this is only one of four mounts but i kind of want to preserve the integrity of this mount as much as i possibly can there's less there than i originally thought this metal on the sides is gone also but what this attaches to is okay so i'm gonna go back to my original plan come in with a plasma cutter cut this whole section out but before i do i have to find exactly where this thing is located because i want to put it in the exact same spot that it's in right now the area that i intend to remove has been marked off on both sides here's the piece that i cut out it's still a little warm i think i'm going to have to harvest this and start over from scratch and it has this big boss on the back of it which is kind of nice looks like it was welded onto that hoping to duplicate the same thing here's the bit i'm left with i'm going to go over and clean this up round it off flatten out this base because it's going to go through the next piece of metal and get welded to it similar to what it was here but it's going to sit up a little bit higher don't care because i'm rebuilding its mount here's my finished product a lot less rust you can't weld rust which is why i wanted to clean this especially up here because i'll be dropping this down into a piece of metal and welding it into place i want to be sure that i have clean metal to do that also at the end i ran a tap down three here to try to clean those threads and they cleaned up just fine and everything looks good now for the next step we need to start rebuilding my plan for the rebuild is as follows and it's very similar to what i was going to do all along and that is i'm going to start by cutting and welding in a piece of metal here to replace this empty space then i'm going to get a piece of metal to cover this area in here drill a hole through and drop that piece i just cleaned down into it into the approximate area where it's going to be then i plan to take the subframe and bolt the new bolt assembly to the subframe and bolt it all up in here all four bolts that way this thing will rest and land exactly where it needs to be and from there i can tack weld things into place so that i can build up around it so that i'm sure that when i'm all done everything winds up in the right place just like it is over here i want the piece of metal i cut to fit as good as possible into this opening and to do that i'm going to make myself a template out of paper before i actually cut any metal that way you know i i can cut this piece of paper as much as i want it's actually a poster board you can also use what works really well for this is like manila folders you don't want to use paper because it may be a little too flimsy something like i said like a manila folder or some thicker piece of almost cardboard but not quite would work really well for this anyway i was able to find this thicker poster board paper that i'm going to be using for this make a template transfer it to metal weld it up in there this is my crew drawing of a square since i trace along the inside i'm going to cut along the outside let's see if it fits it's a little big so i'm going to trim that one side down i can live with that i have a piece of 16 gauge steel here that i'm going to transfer this template over to and that's what i'll be using for my repairs i went to the metal store went through their scrap pile and found this you can actually save a lot of money doing it that way rather than having them cut it specifically for you once again i think i'm going to employ the plasma cutter to do this let's see if it fits i should give me something to trim down to i'd rather have it too big and work my way into it than the other way around and here's my finished piece i've got it all cleaned up clean metal for welding everything seems to fit flush i'm holding it in there with these magnets so they'll hold everything in place while i do my welding i'm not worried about it sticking down there i actually did that intentionally i can bend that when i need to but for now let's get this piece welded into place to avoid warping the metal i'm going to tack it in a couple of spots first before i like finish weld it in probably should turn the gas on i'm like why does it sound so yucky well no gas means dirty weld no need to overheat my magnets first piece is done now that we've got that side done i'm just gonna make a template for here so if your first template doesn't work out scrap it and get another one that's why you're doing this with paper let's make it metal finally got it into position i'm not welding this piece in this will be the last piece i weld in but i need this so that i can measure what's going on on the inside because that is where i'm going to place this guy now i want to make the thing that this bolt goes into so it's got to sit down in there like that so i need a flat piece that i can drill a hole in that this can set into that fits in between here it's probably the straightest piece we'll cut so i need to measure this opening to decide what size just under three and three quarter this doesn't have to be exact but i'm going to call this five and yes i made a paper template for this one too looks ideal first thing i want to do here is take this rough edge and make it a straight line i just broke this is the same end i've been cutting off of and i just broke off those pieces that were sticking out nice let's see how this guy fits all right after a little shaving i've got this guy right where i want it there's another way that i can verify my center excellent so that's just tight enough but it gives me some leeway so that i can position this exactly where i want it and that's why i'm expending all this effort that's our new part there's one more piece i'm going to need before i start putting this together and tacking it in and that's this round area right here it's much larger than this inner portion and if you look at the place where it's going to attach you see what i'm talking about so if it's only touching this inner part this rubber piece around the outside won't compress like it's supposed to so i need a circle or something that's large enough to basically come to the outside here well as it happens i saw that this can seems to be like the perfect size for that if you come over to the vehicle same thing that's like the perfect size circle to go in there so i'm going to cut one of these out of the metal that i have i'm like where's my marker all right let me just take the can put it on the edge here and trace around it oh yeah i think that'll work nicely now i need to make a hole similar to what i have here in here so that the bolt can pass through it a little bit of slop gonna work nice now is the fun part i'm gonna take this piece and bolt the three fasteners in that i can bolt in and that way i can get my positioning correct over here for this guy and i don't need this on there right now i ran a tap through all three of the remaining holes to make sure that the bolts go in well i also have new fasteners here's the part number for those bolts because i ruined one of them and i said you know what the heck i'll just get four of them and we'll have all new ones anyway for the last one i'm gonna do this so bolt goes through then my next piece that's going to be the body now i'm going to run the other fasteners down and like i said this when i tighten it up will help locate all of this perfectly in alignment with everything else that feels like it needs to come up just a little bit more i'm just gonna level it out i'm gonna call it right there so this is the reason why i wanted slop in here so that this could be positioned correctly now the plan is to tack all this in take this back out finish weld it in and then make braces to come down the sides one last check to make sure it's all in position it's not going to get any better now i'd like to add some support similar to what was in here before so once again i'm gonna make myself a template and put it in here oh yeah that took a lot of that wiggle away and it's only tacked in and it's only half good idea to put the support in i'm actually going to cut and get this piece ready first before i finish weld everything and i'm going to do all that all at once all right i'm going to weld this side this side and the top that is confidence inspiring i've placed this bottom disc on the bolt put it into position make sure it's got space all the way around the sides i don't need to weld this on i just need to tack it up in here which is what i plan to do right now i'm just going to tack it there and there and it should stay in place now that all this is pretty much there i think it's time to weld well wrong way weld this piece in and then we can fill in this hole in the bottom now i'll weld what i can on the inside to secure that piece for the last part of this i want to seal this all in and to do that what i'm going to do is i'm going to make four pieces so two pieces that come in like this and two pieces that come in like this and that should do it but i just had a thought before i get there maybe put this back up in there and check it to see if everything lines up uh one last time before i commit to the final stuff not that we're not really into it as it is but yeah it'd be nice to know that it all goes in there that goes right in like right in looks level two finish this guy up that's so cool i built that i've created the next metal piece and i'm going to do something a little different this time so it's going to go in like this and i'm going to tack it down but then i'm going to bend it i'm trying to support this center piece it doesn't need to be completely enclosed but hey it would be nice if it was right oh ah my vision is coming together nicely i will come back what i did was you saw me like hammer this flat and i always intended to do that that's why i left it hanging down a little bit that way there's a bit of overlap here and i'll finish weld this stuff in but there's three more pieces i need to make i need to make this piece here and then i'm going to make some small pieces to go in here and over here when i'm done and that should complete it oh ah i have cut and made new pieces now i will weld them in that is all the pieces now they just need to be finished welded could my welds be better probably although it got kind of thin in this area and over here that's why there's big blobs there because i had to like build up i tried turning the welder down that didn't quite work it was a sort of a balancing act but anyway it's all in there and i'm happy with the result i might grind a little bit of this outside stuff off or just down smooth a little bit like these bigger pieces uh but other than that i'd say this repair is done some of you might question why i didn't paint inside of here when i put all this together to help prevent corrosion and that's because i'm actually waiting until after this because if you paint the inside of this and you do all this welding this is super hot right now and all that undercoating that would be in there or paint that would be in there would cook possibly catch on fire since it's new paint so i waited until now the plan is i'm going to drill a hole here and maybe one over here that i can fill in with weld after the fact but i'm gonna fill the void with this eastwood uh frame coating internal frame coating coating this is made just for this in fact i'll show you the the special applicator they have for this but i'm going to also knock off the rust in here and coat the inside of this as well as what's inside of here so i want to get below my support in this area around this fastener but i'm also going to come in up above it through this hole here and perhaps this one over here and this is the applicator you can see like it's got this long hose and a spray nozzle at the end oh yeah that'll go in there nicely things have been wire brushed the can has been vigorously shook for some time and this appears to be cooled down enough where i feel comfortable coating the inside of it i'm finding the leaks in my welds this works good i suggest if you are going to do this to uh put something on your floor because it's likely going to drip out i realize that leakage pretty much says my welds are not well waterproof but i think the sealer on the inside will help a great deal i still want to go in and uh fill in these holes that i made i thought about drain holes but drain holes are also access points for stuff to get in there so it's like yeah yeah so i'm just gonna fill in these holes paint over the whole thing now that that's had an opportunity to cool off i'm just going to paint this area as far as the rest of this rust i'm going to be dealing with that when i do the body repair but as far as what i'm covering here i'm just going to put a coat of paint over the top of this to finish this off and in case you were wondering i'm using uh eastwood's chassis black i will link it in the description well viewers i'm going to conclude this video here about the structural repair of my 2003 honda pilot also known as the hack hawk and i hope this video gave you some insight into the kind of things you may have to do in order to repair the structure on a vehicle like this it's pretty involved it's pretty intense in fact if a customer brought me this vehicle i would say you know what i think it's time for you to look for a new vehicle because of the time and effort that goes into this that's all labor i didn't have to pay myself to do this but if you had to pay somebody to do this work i would guarantee it would far exceed the cost of a 2003 honda pilot at the very least anyway if you have this kind of issue consider it carefully if you're going to repair it yourself well i hope the things that you saw in this video gave you some ideas and some insight on how to do that i will put links in the description to parts tools additional information all of that so check the description for additional information also a link to airthecarguy.com will be there for any of you that have questions that weren't covered in the scope of this video thank you so much for watching today be safe have fun stay dirty and i will see you next time and by the way i post videos on fridays hope to see you then well i don't recommend that

Channel: EricTheCarGuy

Views: 338,220

Keywords: Rust repair, subframe rust, Honda Pilot, Honda Pilot rust, Honda Ridgeline rust, Acura MDX rust, rusted frame, subframe mount, Honda rust, fixing Honda rust, rust repair, fabrication, plasma cutter, welder, welding, how to fabricate, diy frame repair, diy rust repair, 2003 Honda Pilot, Honda repair, how to auto repair, how to video, new ETCG repair videos, automotive education, EricTheCarGuy, Eric the car guy, ETCG

Id: wou4sk8Xt9k

Length: 24min 58sec (1498 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 24 2021