Those of you with '88 & newer vans exposed to salty roads may want to 
pull your bumpers off & check for rust.

I pulled the rear today (after drilling out two of side mounting 
bolts that were rusted solid). Found some pretty ugly seam rust 
taking hold, which is well hidden by the newer bumpers.

Aside from the rusted bolts, bumper removal takes only a few minutes, 
but might help you slow down some of the rustm if present. In my 
case, I'll be at it for a while trying to deal with a pretty bad case 
of it. (about 1" on either side of the seams).

Another place to check is inside the rear hatch below the lock. Mine 
appeared to be leaking and creating some really bad rust between the 
inner & outer layers of metal.
Another careful rust repair job underway...  I'm not quite sure what 
to do with this - the inner metal fell away with gentle prodding, to 
there's now a hole about 1" x 2" right below the lock on the inside. 
Luckily the outer metal is pretty solid. My gut feeling is NOT to 
fill it, since this will trap moisture. I had thought of lots of 
phosphoric acid, then coats of Tremclad, followed by a small patch 
of fiberglass mat.
Any thoughts on this approach?

tia.
Shawn & Janis Wright
'88 Westy (338k) '85 Jetta TD (367k)
VWnut@smus.bc.ca (swright@smus.bc.ca)
http://www.islandnet.com/~swright/vw.html