Rust on hatch hinge

Hello,

I have recently been looking to do some clean up on my car's paint, and I stumbled across some rust on the hatch door hinges. The rust seems to be coming from water that flows through the narrow gap right before the beginning of the spoiler. Is there suppose to be some sort of weather stripping here?

When opening up the rear hatch, I can see that the water irrigates through the sides as evidenced from the trail of dirt left behind. I'm concerned with this issue because it seems like the water has no where to drain out and it eventually seeps into the cover behind the rear taillights. I am already suspecting that rust has begun to form behind these covers as I saw slight bits of orange near the top of the cover.

Has anyone had any issues like this before?

It looks like I am going to have to take my car to a body shop to get that hatch door hinge cleaned out and possibly re welded.

Please see below for my picture references. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

http://s22.postimg.org/silenk63x/IMG...615_170353.jpg

http://s22.postimg.org/eq6zrxfcd/IMG...615_170417.jpg

http://s22.postimg.org/rvmhy197x/IMG...615_170525.jpg

http://s22.postimg.org/7pizz5dkd/IMG...615_170651.jpg

ope! my first ep has the same problem... not as bad but same spot.

Yikes man, I wonder if this is a defect among our cars...

I was looking at the 'tailgate' diagram for the car and it appears the hinge is actually not soldered onto the body. It's actually screwed in. I think i'll just buy a set of new hinges and have the shop take care of removing the rust/ spraying.

Do you know a way to prevent rust from occurring in this spot in the future?

Its an unseen spot it would be cake to take off the hatch then hinge then sand and paint yourself... A lil fun project xD and hmmm maybe you changed your spoiler put a rep on and didnt elec tape off the unused holes? Thats how mine was for a few years but then again i noticed jt when i bought it... Coulda been painted with the bracket already on meaning underneath is raw metal and over time it chiped and was open to rust... Who knows lol

True true, good points you brought up. I got the car used so whoever owned it before could have done anything to it. I'm gonna start work on the rear hatch in a couple weeks. I first gotta get my clutched replaced.

For cleaning out the hatch hinge area, my game plan is to just replace the entire hinge, sand off the rusted area where the hinge sits on top of, prep and clean for primer, apply a few coats of primer, apply few coats of color, apply few coat of clear. Think it would be necessary to buy some POR15?

have you fix the rust yet? i just took my hinges off to clean up the rust also and i had a gasket material in between the body of the car and the hinge and what ive found out is seam sealer around the edge of the hinge. im just wondering if yours was like this also?