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Help!
Repairing some rust on the rear wheel fender lip (for the third time - that tells you how good I am with body work). The rust has eaten through both the outer fender sheet metal as well as the inner wheel well at the lower edge of the fender over the wheel. The hole is currently about 1/2" wide by about 7" long.
Here's the question - did Nissan put some kind of material between the inner and outer sheetmetal at the fender lip?
I am digging out some kind of material that is not rust and not metal. If it's supposed to be there, I don't want to keep digging.
Help!

If you can post some detailed pictures I might be able to help, my father owns an collision repair shop...so I know quite a bit about that kinda stuff...by what Pete said it sounds like thats what it is...(the stuff you're finding is seam sealer..)

 

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After some more digging last night I would have to agree. It appears to be sealer of some type that was used where the tack weld the inner and outer sheet metal together at the fender lip. I'm taking the quick way out (for the time being) and scraping and cleaning all the loose crap out. I etched and put my first coat of POR-15 on last night. Another coat tonight and then I start bondo'ing them heck out of it. It drives me nuts that this was the result of a rear end collision way back in 1994. Thankfully there is not another speck of surface rust anywhere on the car.

Ok, if you're going to "bondo" it up as you say, don't make it sound like its a soulution, because apparently its not, hehe. IF you want to do it right, then cleana off the area around the rusty hole with a grinder, and find someone to weld a piece of metal behind it, and go find some seam sealer from an auto-parts stor, seal it up real good, just use your finger to put the seam sealer on, (THE BEST TOOL EVER) and then use the bondo to fill in the recessed area. If you just "fill in" with bondo its just going to fall appart like it did before.
In order for the sheet metal to fit right, you might need to do some bending of the piece of metal by hand, and tapping it with a hammer. To cut the piece of metal out, you'll need a piece of tin snips, they work the best. To aquire a good piece of metal, I'd sugest going to one of your local body shops and looking through their sheet metal pile. I hope I was of some help, let me know if you need any more advice.

~Ryan

 

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My previous attempts at repair didn't fall apart - I just did a crappy job of trying to remove the rust and didn't use a good rust inhibitor. The rust kept speading - which I fully expect it to continue to do but hopefully at a reduced rate now. There is quite a bit of good metal still and I plan to use some of the flexible aluminized sheet stuff to back it. The my crappy bondo and painting skills to finish it off

Yes, you should cut all the old rust off with a grinder....my experience with rust inhibitors has not been that great, unless you use a seam sealer like I suggested, moisture (YOUR ARCH ENEMY) will continue to reek havoc on your hydro-sensitive metal! haha...sorry about the terminology, but you get it, right? If you can, I'd use steel, and find someone who is good at welding, it would make it a seemingly finnished product...