Do I need to wire brush this before putting the fender back on?

Or can I just spray rust oleum on it and call it a day. It’s app covered up. Not sure it’s salvageable.

If you don’t grind off the rust and paint it, it’ll just keep getting worse. No way around that.

Ashwin said:
If you don’t grind off the rust and paint it, it’ll just keep getting worse. No way around that.

Yeah, it looks like the rust has gone pretty deep already. I’ll try an angle grinder, but I might end up with nothing left to work with lol

If you’re putting stock fenders back, use good clips. I used cheap ones and they kept falling off when I went off-road. Ended up running without fenders for a while until I got tired of all the mud. Finally switched to some aftermarket flat fenders.

If it’s rusted through, just stop. Wash it first, get some rust reformer, then prime and paint it or use rubberized undercoating or even Rhino liner.