So I started chipping away at some filler and it keeps going. Notice the hole? It was packed full. If I keep going I may not have a car left. The bottom half has a thick layer and the rest of the car seems to have a thick skim coat, if im ever to have a nice paint job this has to be removed right? I'm so dissapointed right now don't know if I can tackle this. Also I notice a strong body filler odor as I was chipping it off, the filler on the bottom seems to have never dried it is still tacky! I have no idea how long this filler has been on here but i've had the car for 10 years, can filler be applied so thick it never dries nearest the metal?
At this point you need to pour a big cold one and kick back for about an hour. It ****s when you buy a car and start digging and you find a bunch of bondo in a car. I had the same problem with my '51 Merc but at the end of the day I'm redoing the car for me and I plan to keep it for 25 years.
I can sympathise with your disappointment. From what you've said, maybe it isn't the car you should spend a lot of your time and effort on in the pursuit of a nice paint job. Filler doesn't dry. It cures chemically. If filler is uncured then it probably was not mi**ed properly or with sufficient hardener prior to application. Best of luck Pete
Thats nothing...read through this post & be blessed thats all you had to deal with..lol http://www.losboulevardos.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5674
Well I havent even got to the other side yet! so there is probably more to come, wow gotta go get that beer now. Some bodymen should be sculpting statues and **** instead of working on cars, their talents are being wasted forming bondo like this, damn.
i swear you could take a car out of a CRUSHER and with a 55 gallon drum of filler some of these guys could make it look like a new car just heavier!!!
I feel your pain....check out what I've been through.... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=320267 Its now all steel...the thread hasnt been updated in some time....scince the last time it was updated I replaced the entire roof of the truck as well as the sail panels and even found and replaced bondo on the floorboards (under the carpet)....I found bondo over 2 inches thick... I've been weighing it as I take it out (by the 30 LB kitty litter bucket full....) I'm up to 153.6 Lbs.... I'f your planning on keeping it for 25 years....just fix it right....your kids kids will have to worry about it in another 60-80 years....
Been there, done that, gotta t-shirt...welcome to the "its not the suspension, its the weight from the bondo" club. But if its otherwise a good ride, or something you just have your heart set on, use this as an opportunity to hone your metal/body skills -- an art that many believe is never perfected.
**** it up...dig or cut it out...move on. The sooner you start seeing your new metal go on, the sooner you'll forget how much grief it caused you! They should have a limit at the jobbers as to how much bondo a guy is allowed to buy!
Remember that the neat old cars that we're working on were once just commonplace garden-variety used cars that people fixed up as cheaply as possible to run through the auction and be sold at the friendly local "buy here pay here, no credit no problem" car lot. Gotta admit that some of the guys who essentially sculpt replacement panels out of bondo are pretty talented.
i'm sure a 30 years ago or so, body guys thought that bondo was like magic in a can and didn't know what would happen down the road cause it wasn't around that long. Eather that or to them these cars weren't worth anything to them kind of like an early 80 ricer is today, the cars weren't worth the effert. Maybe alittle of both?
this shoebox had a skim coat (i thought) over everything. after i did the chop and i noticed some dust stuck in some cracks all over the car....body ended up having at least 8-10 FULL gallons of filler on it. the sandblaster wouldnt touch it. ended up stripping it all off, bout killed my disc sander...the body was pretty strait overall. the roof was damn near perfect, but that didnt matter at least 1/8" across the whole roof!!
Time to learn the ways of the english wheel. What kind of car are we talking about here? Are replacement panels available? I bought a 55 country squire station wagon a few years back, and I could barely find another car, let alone any replacement parts! So keep this in mind. If you embark on this project, plan on finding a ****-ton more, and it costing 5 times as much as planned, and taking 5 times as long. Not trying to discourage you, just being realistic. If you have no sentimental attachment to the car, sell it and let it become somebody elses problem. Rudy
This is what I chipped off a rear quarter. The 4" tall pile of shavings was from the driver's side rear quarter panel only. The body looked straight with the exception of 1 big dent that was revealed when the bondo that filled it in was cracked off. I went in to do metal surgery, worked my way across the rest of the quarter to find a license plate as a patch panel held in with wood screws (all completely hidden by a great bondo magician!) The rest of the body was just as bad as this corner. So, the cost to repair all of the hidden rust on this particular project was higher than buying an aftermarket "tub", so the customer went the smart route and bought an aluminum replacement tub. ('74 Toyota Landcruiser)
The crazy thing is for every gal. on the car there is probably a gal. lost from sanding it smooth from the start!
I have dug 4 inches of bondo out of a dent that popped right out. The har I have now was covered in bondo for no reason. Most of the places I dug it out from were perfectly fine.
I have one you probably have"t seen.I have seen a lot of **** from rags ,newspaper,pop cans but on the 36 I now have was filled with frickin concrete no **** the kinda stuff sidewalks are made of.Going to have to use a air hammer to cut it out
the shop that used to be next door to me hired some young guys who had been to the local body and fender cl***es at the high school. they covered a 53 F-100 about 95% with bondo. the shop owner went and ****ed it all up trying to chop it, I don't know what happened to the car but I'm sure the owner got screwed over big time. these same guys did a nice 32 ford cab. later I was asked to block it and get it ready to paint. there was bondo where there were no dents, and dents filled without so much as the slightest tap with a hammer. with all the books and videos and the HAMB out there there is no excuse for this ****ty work these days.
Unless you have shop space,time, money and know how stop chipping now. You still have a nice car you can drive it you keep chipping you will not be able to stop till you have restored the whole car.
The car is a shoebox ford 1950 that runs great. Just a horrrible *** body, there are replacement panels available I think I could learn a lot on this car.
yeah. First lesson is how to buy a car. Education is expensive no matter where or how you get it. One of the great lessons in life is to stop looking over the fence at how green the gr*** is and get to mowing your own lawn. A bare metal repair job is fantastic ............ if you don't have to pay pro rates for it. It's just like wearing expensive underwear....hardly anyone will know. The issue is If you don't know how to spot the filler when you get the car there's every reason to suspect that it's going to take you a really long time to get the skills to able to get a panel flat ...let alone the welding .........the beating ......A good car is one you can drive......sure go and get a big sander polisher and go all over your car and knock every bit of bondo off it....you'll be an old man before it looks even close to what it looked like when you started...... a few people have already made a point here that many miss....it takes a fair bit of artistry to get bondo flat.....and those guys with those skills did it because it was still even easier, cheaper, and quicker than a full metal repair on a car that probably wasn't worth it at the time. I loved the shot of the license plate as a repair panel , what a guy....."fresh plate?" .." not when I've got this license plate here" . If those cars hadn't been bondoed they'd be gone by now........ I don't mean to be nasty about it but some people are getting a bit precious here.......when someone wants a cheap repair job , it's bondo. The very first "old car" I got into restoring got a fair whack of money spent on serious metal work, it broke the bank and I drove it around for years before I could paint it properly, then it got crashed. The lesson here is about overcapitalising . That means don't spend more than the car is worth. Before you start digging holes in it get someone who knows their paint to give it a look over...they'll tell you quickly whether the body is worth a "full job"....or better off with a tidy up and leaving the "sleepingdogs" to lie unmolested.
My uncle who is was an avid restorer/builder worked for Dupont's polymer division for 30 years and said that by nature, filler never truly hardens fully. He actually showed me papers that it is similar to concrete in that it is always curing and at a certain point(usually 20 plus years) it will start to become elastic in nature and sag. They actually spent tens of thousands of dollars to do***ent. Jon
I dont know why people get so down on plastic filler. Well i do, but it is becasue of all the half ***ed hacks out their giving it a bad name. Most cars that are complete restorations are skim coated. Done properly even the most skilled and talanted painters could never find it. The key word is properly. When you see builds like the ones shown here, these are the examples of the types of misuse that give mud a bad name. The guys who bulid panels out of the stuff are asking it to perform beyond its limitations. I recently asked a very well known sheet metal fabricator if a car he was working on for a high end client would be metal finished. He chuckled at me, like you really think im going to put that much work into this. Its impracticle to think that about a vehicle that someone is building as a street car. Unless your building it for yourself, and its a retirement project. I love well crafted bare metal cars, and aspire to build one one day. Untill then, i intend on skim coating my projects and blocking them till their straight as an arrow. Long story short, dont hate the plastic filler, hate on the hack the put it on with a trowl and mixed it in a 5 gallon bucket. Probally left it sit out in the rain for a few weeks before he got it primered as well.
Agreed. I'd even take a step backward and bondo/fibergl*** that back up. It made it ten years right? It is better to have a bondo bucket that you're enjoying the hell out of, than a bare metal sculpture hogging the garage for a decade. Only you know your situation, skills, budget, and facilities. Good luck
Bondo or body filler has a bad wrap because people use it the wrong way. The reason it failed isn't because of the filler but what it was put on. Every car that has a show paint job has some sort of filer on it end of story. Weather you are loading it up with surfacer because you refuse to properly skim coat a panel and block it smooth or even if there is lead used for the repair. Old custom cars paint can't even come close to a modern show car. Body filler has evolved into a quality product an guys just have to get over it. Do I agree that panels should be worked till they need no more than a 1/8" "YES". Problem is guys get lazy and start building it up instead or addressing the metal issues. I guide coat all my panels when they are in bare metal as this is the best way to know what is going to happen when you lay on a skim coat. You are better off having a quality 2 part glaze product then someone building it up with surfacer as it will shrink 10x as much. Get over it there is nothing wrong with a car that has correctly used filer and every show car has some on it or it isn't straight! Show me a Riddler car that doesn't have filler somewhere??
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