I've owned an '88 F150 XLT Lariat almost since new, has been a great truck except for the bad paint. Four years ago, after watching every other Ford around me begin to rust out at the rear wheel wells, I got a little nutty and cut out that steel inner wheel liner on each side. Moisture and dirt are trapped in there and rust forms on the inside, where you can't see it. I had to fabricate some new brackets to support the fender from the wheel lip opening to what remained of the old wheel liner. Just used a couple of the mounting holes for the chrome lip moulding after enlarging them. Seems to have worked great! It's got to be about the only '88 around here with perfect rear wheel well openings... Heres my question, I'm looking to buy a newer '92 to '96 extended cab and will probably do the same thing to its wheel openings. I've noticed many of these trucks, even up to '95s, are beginning to rust out along the bottom of the extended cab. This is real noticeble in '87 to '91's also. Anyone know where this moisture is coming from or whats causing this particular area to rust out? I think I would be pretty unhappy if I had bought a new "Eddie Bauer" supercab 4 years ago and it was rusting out already. Ask a Ford body shop and they look at you like, "Duhhh"..why don't you buy a new truck? Any one care to voice their opinions? Thanks

 

I just did a repair along the bottom edge of my 90 extended cab.. rust thru hle about the size of a silver dollar. Looked like there's a steel support under the edge of the extra cab that is spot welded to the outer skin of the extra cab, just under the edge. It looked like water, grit, etc got into one of the gaps between the spot welds and rusted thru to the outside. Of course, in between those pieces of sheet metal, theres no corrosion prevention of any kind, so after repairing the rust through, I sealed all along this joint, on both sides of the cab. Hopefully, this prevents any more rust!! (crossing my fingers)

Chuck

 

I don't live in the Rust Belt, but guess what? My '90 regular cab is rusting real bad along the two vertical body seams directly underneath the window gasket. I took the truck in to a Grinning Ford Dealer four years ago, at 98,000 miles, and had them "fix" the minor rust under the 100,000 mile rust perforation warranty.
They "fixed" me, all right...they slapped a gob of bondo over the rust, and squirted paint on it: Quality Job One, no doubt about it. The bondo leaped off the truck this past summer, and now it's perforated all the way through.
I'm going to fix it myself, as soon as I learn how to get the "XLT" chrome trim strip back into the sliding window gasket.
Anybody know how?
Ed