98 ranger pu. Rust and holes under door and body door panels, what bondo product will adhere upside down. Best pu I ever owned, bought new. Still runs great!
First step, make sure drain holes on underside of door & rocker panels are open, not clogged. I’m not aware of any Bondo-type product that is specifically made for the upside-down orientation. That stuff sticks fast, unlikely to fall off as long as long as applied according to package directions. There are reinforced Bondo products, but I believe those are for more impact resistant, not more sticky.
For more sticky than Bondo, perhaps a fiberglass/fiberglass mat repair method would work.
Disclaimer: I’m just a driveway diy’er, no claim to body-work expertise.
Bondo does not fill holes, it fills dents.
If you strip the rust off, holes can be patched using fiberglass cloth, polyester or epoxy resin. Use duct tape across the hole to support the cloth and resin until it dries. It is best done from the inside with gravity helping to hold it in place until it dries. This is not the best repair, just the easiest. The best is welding new sheet metal to clean metal after cutting the rusty stuff out.
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Yup!
When the rocker panels on our '55 Plymouth rusted-out, my father had the rust stripped-off, and then we used fiberglass cloth to patch the holes. Actually, my mother did the fiberglass repair, and then after it had dried and been sanded, it was my job to paint the rocker panels with a couple of rattle cans.
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First thing I’d do is get it up on a lift and go over the entire body/frame, make sure important things aren’t rusted out.
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Well stop driving it in the salt, or wash it off completely on the under side each time it is exposed to salt, even in the dead of winter.
Make sure salt water is flushed out of areas where it can pool, like the bottom side of bumpers.
edit: I should add that it is not necessary to wash the vehicle if it has dry salt on it. But, unless it is kept in a garage, be ready to get out there and wash it off before the next rain or snow comes that will add moisture to that dry salt.
Let’s see?
You take the vehicle to a car wash, (one that hopefully washes the underside of the vehicle). and remove the salt that washed up from the wet roads.from the melted snow and ice.
My question is, how do you get the vehicle from the car wash home without driving on the wet roads that contains the salt?
Tester
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LMC Truck has repair panels for these trucks.
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Because water runs so freely and never freezes below 32 degrees in the dead of winter…
ALL car washes are closed in my area when the temp drops below freezing…
I guess things are way different up in your neck of the woods…
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You do it at home. Garden hose must be stored indoors. I’m not sure that the automatic car washes always spray enough water under vehicles. They move past too quickly.
In the dead of winter?
You do realize some people shut the outside water off in the winter so the pipes don’t freeze? 
Tester
Around here the car wash will shut down when it gets below zero. Usually though the streets are fairly dry after salt is applied and the snow melts. I have washed the car several times inside the garage in the winter. Even with a floor drain though it is such a gosh awful mess, it is to be avoided. The humidity coats frost on everything and takes days to dry out again. Better to just use the self service car wash if you have to. I don’t have a floor drain in my current abode but do have hot and cold water.
Back to the question though. It is not clear to me where the rust is but welding new metal or replacing panels is the only long term solution. If a novice is just going to patch holes, por15 saturated fiberglass cloth is one way. Then filling with fiberglass filler. You cannot use body filler since it absorbs water and promotes rust. Fiberglass at least seals the water out. Unless you fix rust yourself or have a friend, you cannot afford to pay someone unless you have a classic.
And then you wake up in the morning and find it snowed during the night, and the plows came thru and plowed the snow and laid down more sand and salt to melt the snow and ice.
It’s a never ending story until spring.
Tester
The only salt water near my house is in a pickle jar.
The sun shines 350 days of the year.
The bottom of my car still has the factory paint.
Someone once asked “why do you continue to live in that awful place?”
Elbow room cried Daniel Boone.
I washed the underside of my truck, esp wheel wells, sills, tail-gate after every big snow storm when I lived in Colorado. Sometimes 2 or 3 times per week. Not a big deal, took 5-10 minutes. At the diy’er self-serve coin operated car wash that had a pressurized spray wand. As far as I recall, that car wash never closed, open 24/7, no matter the outside temperature.
How did they prevent the water in the hose and wand from freezing when not in use?
Tester
That’s a great question. Don’t know. The water to the wand came from an overhead hose high above the vehicle, so maybe it just drained out by gravity when not in use.
It’s possible I suppose that car wash actually did close when the temps got really low, but I wouldn’t be washing my truck outside in those temperatures. I washed the truck routinely in the 10 deg to 40 deg F range though.
The ones around here are heated so the bays never get below freezing. I have also seen the wands leaking a small stream of water to prevent freezing or just worn out wands. I dunno not something I do more than once or twice a year. I suspect Colorado normally doesn’t get as cold Ss Minnesota though. Some of them also have supplemental heating you can drop a few coins for. In school I even waxed my car in the dead of winter using the coin heat.
Soapy wate freezes at a lower temperature than tap water. I read an online source that said he froze dish washing liquid at 12F to 14 F. Car washes dilute that of course, but we can be certain that washing fluids at the carwash freeze several degrees below 32F. As for rinse water, there may be surfactants to help wet the car surfaces and that depresses the freezing point some. The liquids are almost certainly stored below ground and that will keep the stored liquids at about 50F assuming the cold ambient temperature cools the stored water some. You may have noticed that moving water also does not freeze at 32F. If the lines are drained when not in use the carwash can run on cold days.