I missed it if it was mentioned, but what make of car is the subject of this thread? I would look it over carefully and decide if I was prepared to do the large amount of body work required to fix it, and if not, then I would sell it as is. It is very unlikely that the selling price will increase proportionally to the time and money spent fixing it up partially, to sell. P.S. I've seen trees growing through cars, but never a cactus!
'Fresh paint, no rust' generally means run and hide! Especially in the northern states and coastal areas.
After going back to Michigan for the Woodward Cruise, And seeing the rust buckets as DD's I am glad I live in AZ... I would take this project any day ! What you guys fix back there on the east side... We scrap out here Sorry to say it but its true
This was the floor on my 48 Plymouth coupe when I got it. "Needs a little floor work." Actually the guy said "Its really rusty, but I can get $200 for scrap (when scrap was high), or I will sell it to you for that $200." "Perfect! I'll take it!" and I drug it home. Now, after seven years on the road and 60,000 miles later, I need to do a little more work on it. I think it was a pretty good trade off. You southern and western guys are spoiled! Gene
You are right, Dana. I look at it this way when these cars were 15 or 20 years old they were not worth the time and money to make correct repairs, now that they are worth more we can sink that effort in them. Every old car project I have been involved with needed a lot of rust repair. If it was not a lot of work, everyone would be driving something cool, it's the effort that sets us apart.
Ive got a 53 ford 3/4 that apparently was the shop tuck for a body shop. Rusty pile Full of bondo. Apparently ole John bought his body filler by the 55 gallon drum!
Cross your fingers, I'm going in making the first patch panel. Bottom of the quarter is actually solid and good to weld to. Luckily I won't have to make a complicated bunch of bends on the first one.
pkhammer and 62 rebel my cars would never pass your magnet test as I lead load and some areas have over 1/2" of lead in seams and some areas of panels I cant srink enough...so the the magnet test ain't up to scratch on my cars..it will give you a wrong reading every time......
That is true morac41, unfortunately I don't know of a better way to look for thick layers of bondo and leaded cars are pretty rare these days as that is nearly a lost art. As a disclaimer to my comments, I am not in any way trying to bash anyone's work that is making an honest attempt to revive a worn and rusty old car. Some of my own repairs are sub-professional grade I'm sure but I always remove ALL the rust and weld in new sheetmetal to make a solid repair and keep the filler to a bare minumum. What I am trying to avoid is the car that has a slap job (chicken wire, roof flashing, cardboard, newspaper and bondo) that is done solely to make a car look presentable enough to fool the less than cautious buyer into thinking he's getting a "solid" car.
When I was a lad I made a little electronic gizmo which was a small coil which you passed over an area of suspected bog/fiberglass etc. The whole thing was housed in a tobacco tin, and had an earpiece. When you turned it on, you would hear a tone (audio signal generator). As you moved the coil near metal, the pitch would change. When moved over bog (or bondo as you guys call it), the pitch would change according to how far away the backing metal was (or wasn't). I used it at a couple of yards (they were all bog-wagons in those days), and the salesmen would kind of disappear after I showed them how it worked.
Bought a running driver 60's Wagon from Michigan several years ago that I have been doing a 2 door Nomad style conversion build with. I started pounding out what appeared to be a dent in the quarter only to find huge amounts of bondo applied over a piece of diamond mesh they had used for the patch. Fortunately I had a rear section of another quarter panel that I was able weld into place. Later I was cleaning up the spare tire well and found the bottom was a piece of aluminum held in place by duct tape and undercoating. I guess I had expected I would be doing some rust repair but not to the extent I found. The good news is spending the time and effort to properly make the repairs is paying off.
The Jalopy Journal
