This may be hard to describe without a picture, so I might have to get one, but try to imagine..

The car is a 2-door '71 Chevelle. On my right quarter, if you can imagine around the back-seat class, there's part of the car that is 'between' the chrome strip on the drip rail and the actual glass. About an inch or two wide, painted. Well, it had a cracked/peeling area. It eventually got worse without me noticing and eventuall fell off. Bare metal is exposed. It looks pretty bad. It's about 1/2 inch wide by 2 inches tall. That was the majority of the cracked/peeling area, so while the edges look like they could peel more, I feel 'confident' they won't unless picked at.

When we were working on the car, we coated it with POR-15, and then an etching primer. The paint shop then put their own primers, sealants, and paint on it. This was about a year and a half ago.

I'm concerned with rust developing on basically exposed metal. Would it still be somewhat protected? What should I do? I doubt the paintshop will do anything about it and if I'm not mistaken, that kind of thing will require a whole re-shoot of the panel. I don't really have time to take it in as the car is my daily driver and I'm up at college, and I don't really have the money for it either. Is there anything I can do, if not to solve it (I almost think bare metal is better, cosmetically, than a shoddy touch-up job), or maybe prevent it from getting worse or having a rust hole develop?

Thanks..

It is on the quarter sail panel or the drop off of the back side window drip rail. This is the only place with a drip rail with chrome on it.

I think you should prep by sanding the edges down and por15 it with gray and prime it and touch it up with paint. This is a small area and should not be that noticebly if you touch it up. You shouldn't have to paint the whole quarter, unless it is on the sail panel itself. If the color don't exactly match then the drip rail chrome will separate it and it will not be very noticebly.

good luck

If you mean between the roof drip rail and the side glass, up the sail panel and forward under the roof edge to the A pillar. Obviously the area didn't get prepped correctly. This is an area that easy to overlook. There is a lap of metal at the base of this area against the sail panel. You could use that as a break and repaint the under/back side of the drip rail to side glass all the way from the sail to the cowl. I'd remove the upper window chrome/felt track, remove the chrome drip rail, tape off the windows, head liner/interior and body; you don't want to get over-spray on everything, sand to bare metal, wipe down, prime with etch and sandable primmer, then shoot it with the body color. This supposes you have the spray equipment to do it.

If not you could use sandable rattle can to get it covered, then run it by the shop that painted it and ask them if they'd take a few bucks to shoot the area. Disassembling and re-assembling the upper channel is easy and will save the paint shop time. If your shop will work with you, you might even be able to do the tape it off for them in the parking lot before rolling it in for them to shoot the area.