53 tuck n roll, This might be your best bet! ....and when he's done with yours, I have some new replacement panels/pieces that I need welded in on my car. Linkin, I'd gladly get you a slab of ribs AND all the fixins AND a Tub of ICE cold Brewskis! ..... lets see some pics of your metal work or was that the Brewskis talking ..... Your pricing sounds very fair Holmes..........I wish you were about 20 hrs. closer.
Great news. Do it your self and learn something you can use. You are keeping track of your time, right? Just for shits & giggles it would be neat to see how long this job takes you, compaired to the 15 hours quoted. I've been doing this stuff for almost 15 years. No need to worry about getting rid of all the thin metal before you start welding. As soon as you fire up the mig, the thin metal will disapere and by time you reach metal you can actually weld to, you will know how big the damaged area is/was. When it comes to metal work, giving it a try yourself is a great educator. Love it or hate it, at least you will understand what it takes to do a job. Keep us posted, I'd be interested in seeing and hearing about the final outcome. Gene
Well what's done is done. I got got by myself and being too into something to know what it would take to fix. I am selling the car. I will do what I can for the metal repair this weekend and take my time to make it as good as I can get.
WTF????? Dude, I'v been following your saga since episode #1.... Now your just gonna bail out? Bummer.
How come the people that cant do the work themselves seem to think they should know how much it should cost and how long it takes? Cheap work is not good, and good work is not cheap.
I'd like to take this quote, blow it up, and hang it on my shop walll!!!!!!!! Words of wisdom, for sure.
I know at the panel shop I worked at the owner hated doing rust reapais so he would charge like a wounded bull. We didnt mind doing it though, I liked it better than smash repairs. Like others have said, and I think I did too somewhere?? There is more damage than you are seeing. Rust dosent have hard edges where it starts and stops. Sounds like selling the car is the best thing to do, go buy a new Mazda sounds like it will suit you.
How is this for a strategy: * Take next project vehicle to a shop that does "down to bare metal" stripping and complete body, paint. * Tell shop you don't want a paint or body estimate until after the body is down to bare metal. * If you don't like the cost of repair work and paint, take it to another shop (in bare metal). Would this prevent the syndrome of "well guess what we found as we were doing the obvious repairs" ? Is there a better method to prevent unexpected expense in getting a car re-painted? Thanks!
A couple of weeks ago I took a job of fixing a few small rust bubbles on the bottoms of the doors on a 308 Ferrari, talk about a huge mistake. Totally misquoted the price for that job. When I got in to it I found out it had been half ass patched up before and had about a 1/2 inch of bondo in it. So guess what instead of making some small repairs I had to fab the whole lower half of the doors. That's why I price things high because you can always come down, but this job was for a friend and I lost my butt.
Folks learn about what their looking at on old cars (whether it's small rust holes in a body panel or a dent from the inside out in an oil pan) from experience. Unfortunately learning from experience can be painful and expensive. Around my part of the country, it seems like everyone wants the car to look good and then fix what's basically wrong with the car. So you get a lot of chicken wire and bondo fixes. Then they figure out what it's really going to take to fix the car and bail out. Next owner is in for some suprises if they don't check carefully. Every person has to decide for themselves if they want to take the time, trouble, and expense of fixing something that is worse than they thought it was gonna be. Being a basically optimistic person, I've had to teach myself to look at the worst case scenerios and decide if things are worth messing with. Larry T BTW On this deal, I think I'd try to fix it myself. At least I'd know what I could be getting into next time.
Dude, don't sell your car. Quit listening to us. For starters, I dunno anyone in your situation other than child prodigys that could tackle that repair in all metal. Would all metal be the right way, yep. Are there other ways? Yep. Load that bitch with fiberglass and putty then cruise the wheels off it. Couple attempts and it'll probably be looking real smooth. Surf around the HAMB and you'll notice a weird phenomenon. Old fiberglass and bondo repairs that shouldn't last 30 days have somehow survived 30 years. When I was your age, the monster garage home fabrication phenom hadn't hit yet, and there weren't resources for the home metal fabricator like there are today. I loaded several cars with glass mat and tiger hair, those cars looked great for years. So slather it up into something you can use, just don't post progress pictures here. PS how do you think a lot of wild 60s show cars got those outrageous curves??? Lot of em used putty & fiberglass. It's unfortunately traditional good luck (and don't let a more advanced group take the wind out of your sails)
I heard those cars were terrible about that. Apparently there's some kind of engineering problem with Magnum's chest hair holding rainwater, causing rapid rust thru.
Sounds like you need a refresher on what an estimate is. a statement of the approximate charge for work to be done, submitted by a person or business firm ready to undertake the work. Read the part about approximate. You quoted/estimated for a specific job. What you had to do was outside the scope of the original quote/estimate. I let my customers know that what I give them is just that, an estimate, if I do anything outside the scope of that original estimate they will be charged for it.
You bet I would. They are the best in the industry and have always been fair when quoting prices. Pay once and get the job done right the first time is my motto now. I've learned this lesson over the years. Advanced Plating 800-588-6686
then sack it up and do it urself. go to another shop if u dont like it. it takes a decent amount of time to fab a patch panel, and have it tacked and get it fully welded in, with no warping or distortion. that only needs a skim of filler. y wouldnt the shop over qoute? u can open a can of worms sometimes.
If it's not your daily, check out State Prisons,some have"trade school" type programs. I've seen some DAMN FINE work come out of Nevada State Prison.(And more than reasonable).
Well i reread this thread. Correct me if im wrong. first your car is not even running. second you didnt take it to the shop. third the guy who gave the estimate has never even seen the car. fourth since the general consenus here is that maybe the estimate is OK or everybody here dont agree with you now you want to give up and sell it. This scenario happens all the time. We reciently bought a 56 chev that was a good running , driving car then the new owner took it all apart and sanded the paint off . Now it is a surface rusted engineless took apart car that he took a $2000.oo loss on . My advise to you dont worry with the body work yet. Fix all the mechanical stuff first, do as much as you can yourself. Work on one thing at a time when you have that done move to the next step. As far a those rocker rust holes i have done the oily rags and crome tape thing it cant hurt anything and will help to stabilize and arrest the rust and keep it fron spreading. OldWolf
Man when these threads come up... Some get it, some don't. "How much!!??!" As if us that do this shit are fuckin millionaire oil barons or something. Break out the professional equipment, proper supplies, a sheetmetal break, maybe a slip roller, good shears that actually work, or maybe the electric shears if you want to take it easy on your hands for a change. Clean all the rust out that you can't see. I can see it. You describe a single hole that's around 8" in diameter by calling it 4 2" holes. It's in the hardest part of the car to work on. Did you gut the inner quarters? Easiest place to start a fire in a car. So, with several thousands of dollars in equipment, high utility bills, expensive raw mat'ls, and last but not least, the talent and skill to do the shit, let alone the discipline to do it right. A grand is a fair to great deal. My suggestion is to pay up or pass. You could always just bondo it up...every year...bigger every time...or "glue on some Taiwan sheetmetal"...or call your rust out patina...
I'm presently working on a customers 55 belair , he bought a " good clean car " then stripped it , now 2 door skins, both inner and outer rockers ,complete l/h 1/4 ,lower front r/h 1/4 , rear trunk floor,lower trunk floor brace , rear panel , and numerous hrs of cowl repair and various rust patches later............ , if you go shopping for the cheapest work available dont be surprised if you nget what you pay for , just my opinion BC
Had a homeowner with the same outlook, used to tell me how long carpentry work would take...................AND wondered why I never returned her calls!
it might be slightly overpriced, the prices of getting the work done can be frustrating and seem expensive but there is a bit of hours and elbow grease involved. i do everything myself, engine, body, upholstery, wiring. I figure if people can do it so can i. at work i am just a car washer, i wanted stuff, never had the money to get it done so i had to figure things out for myself, i was quite fortunate to have a uncle that i lived with for a while who is a very experienced head vehicle painting teacher but the rest i just had to buy books and do lots of research on the net, it would have been much harder 20 years ago without the net but now you have forums, how to articles and youtube demo's so anyone can learn anything. all up for your rocker panel its going to cost you about 1.5-2 grand to buy a welder and materials or you could save a few hundred and buy glue and a suitable gun but the main advantage of buying a welder is you can learn to weld and you dont have to keep buying expensive adhesives. but i think if you have rust in your rocker you are going to find alot more rust through the car and if you dont start doing it yourself you could be making alot of expensive trips to the body shop. all up doing my body i have spent about $6000 australian but now i have the gear and experience to do other cars,I had a shitload of rust and did a lot of custom work like canted quad headlights in a 2 headlight car. you are going to need a welder, primers, fillers, abrasives, paint, jack, stands, aplicators, rubbing blocks, thinner etc to do it, it will cost more but i bet it works out cheaper in the long run by time you have your car finished. when you fit a rocker panel the two things to make sure of is that the panel is protected from rust inside with paint and that the body is adequately supported so it doesnt flex when you cut the rocker panel of, you will also need to practice getting a neat enough penetrating weld without burning to much metal.
A co-workers hubby got dinged 95 bucks for a shop to bend and flare a 3 foot brake line for his 59 mg slave cyl. He even supplied the fittings. Ouch. I only would have charged 50.....oh, and the line had no more than three simple bends. Derek
Cut out 2 of the holes and have a god size area to patch. My welds=terrible. The tip was clogged from the get go, and the damn gas canister was blowing out of the rental companies duck taped rubber hose. It is the ugliest weld ever. I am going to be grinding down the welds and see what happened then probably cutting it out back out and re-doing it. Yea im a tool for thinking that was too pricey. When I cut out the patch I noticed from outside of the car another big rust hole on the inside of the fender. SAFETY tip im sure you all know. Even though I thought i was in the clear I wasnt. I didnt wear a welding mask and boy let me tell you. 9 hours AFTER i had finished the weld I woke up to a blurry painul irritation in both my eyes. Felt like someone rubbed sand all in them and I couldnt open or close them without pain. A lesson learned that I will never do again.
Right up til now I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, unlike the others who seemed to unanimously denounce you as a dumbass. Boy was I wrong.
Wat's one to do when he cant afford a 30 dollar mask when he is working commission and not making the cut? I am sure im not the only one to ever do this.
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