Its easy and cheap to fix seam rust, dont be afraid of the procedure just
do it quick before it gets worse.  Also make sure you find and fix the
source of the rust (ie. leaking westy outlets):

1.  Get a dremmel or other tool (air tools are great) that is small enough
to get in those seams and sand out all the rust down to bear metal.

2.  Paint on an acid product like "rustmort" which kills any remaining
rust and turns it black.

3.  Replace some of the white "cauk" VW used in the seams with some
outdoor cauk from the hardware store.

4.  Paint oil based metal primer on the areas you sanded down.

5.  Get some matched paint in spray cans from the dealer or an automotive
paint shop and spray on the affected areas.  For paint codes read the
archives or the section on vanagon.com about paint codes.

Note: This procedure will cost less than $50 minus the tools needed but
will not result in a showroom quality finish.  If you really want to
impress friends and strangers do steps 1-4 then have the van
professionally painted or bring it to a body shop to have all the work
done but this will cost at least 10 times more than the above process and
will not add any additional rust protection.

Andrew Fox

86 Westy
87 Westy
98 Ford E-150

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, Steve Mozurkewich wrote:

> How does one prevent and fix seam rust. I have an 89 westy with minor bubble
> type rust showing up. And I live in Michigan, home of the salty roads.
>
>
> Steve
>