Old 50's truck. Finishing off all my metal work to get ready for sealer ... body and primer ..... A few small issues popping up - what would you guys do (no experience here). 1) PO just patched in some metal and tacked every 3-4 inches and body fill over top. I was planning where metal is still good to remove body filler and tack weld the complete piece .. then seal ....... and then body fill to smooth out. Any issues ? Obviously that hole will need to be repalced with good metal. 2) These seams right by front doors .... even after wire wheel you can see very fine rust/dust behind the seem where the wire wheel cant get to. Was thinkign its been this way for 50 years ..... so exposy should be enough ? 3) Hard to see in pic but this rear corner has a bunch of small (golfball ) dents in it. They just body filled ovver it and smoothed it out. Probably what I will do also unless someone has a cool trick for smoothing those out better ? eg Not sure if heat and cold would do anything here. OR some amazon dent puller.
I just finished a ton of metal work on my '54. In the first pic I would cut out the existing patch and weld in new one. Cut the new patch to fit as closely as possible leaving a tight 1/16" gap all around then weld completely. Fill with Rage body filler then epoxy prime. Pic #2; Epoxy should be enough but to do it right I would use one of these....... https://www.harborfreight.com/21-oz...pXSrMsnC-_AJun3qKt12CfOKoQ1NBfwRoC2mkQAvD_BwE Don't laugh! It works pretty well for the issue you have in pic #2. Makes a little bit of a mess, though. Pic #3; A little hammer and dolly work to smooth out the golfball sized dings as best you can. Fill with Rage then epoxy prime.
On #1, agree. Redo the patch. On #2, I'd wipe down/flood the seam with rust converter before priming. Your call on blasting to prep, but I hate little grains of stuff trapped in crevasses like this and inner/outer wheel seams. Takes a lot of brushing and blowing to get them clean. On #3, Your skill and patience will answer that. Metal finish if you can and will, fill if that's all you can/will do.
If I understand correctly... Welding after body filler? I don't think the body filler will hold up to the heat.
Hey, he asked! And being well familiar with golf ball dents I offer the following example. The issue with filling your golf ball damage is that the dent created a high around the crater, filling the crater is not only a bit "shadetree" but it will not leave a flat surface. A ball check in a green creates a crater and a high around the outside. That high typically has a low radiating out around the impact zone causing a ripple not unlike tossing a stone into a pool. The proper technique to repair the pictured ball check is to work around the outside of the divot pushing the grass in (not tearing it) toward the dent as there is a hump of grass there that has been displaced at impact (like a ripple). Once that is done you tap down the ridge and then pull what is left of the crater with a gentle twisting motion with a suitable divot tool or golf tee (careful as not to tear the roots and thus kill the plant) before tamping it down with the flat of the putter. Done correctly there is no evidence of the ball check and no filler was utilized. Basically you have to reverse engineer the dent, same as body work. Simply pushing or pulling the dent out first is incorrect form. Filling the green divot above with sand and seed would result in no obvious dent but it would leave a wavy surface sure to befuddle the next gaffer to put that line. That is why it is legal in all golf rules to repair the ball checks and improper repairs left by the PP (previous putter in HAMB equivalence). There re many a backyard body man as well as denim trousered and beer stained, tank topped golfer that err in their approach to this simple and most common of issues. Fix what happened last to begin, and work toward the actual impact at the finish for both a well groomed green and laser straight sheet metal. Damn I wish it were warmer out.
if you go into damage like this with filler being part of the plan you will never be able to do it with no filler. that is not to say all of mine come out perfect and no filler, but I always start out intending for it to be a no filler patch. the previous owner made no plans to fix that right from the get-go and will never have a good outcome.
agree ^^^ Cant work out why the PO did this. They floated with body filler almost the entire car. SO they put some time into it and it looked strsight. But they real issues weren't dealt with properly. Seems like a skilled bondo man --- but not much else
The pach isn’t even welded completely, I also would remove the pach and repair the door as needed. Trying to save the bondo is just silly…
I think he's more of a Carl Spackler!! ".... a Cinderella story.... It's in the hole! It's in the hole!"
I agree with what's been said. The tacked in patch needs to be cut out completely and a new piece butt-welded in. No overlap, and welded all the way around. The seam really should be blasted, and I will vouch for those little hand held hopper-blasters. They're ideal for this. Tent the whole truck with plastic if you can and mask it off paint-style so the sand doesn't get everywhere. The blasting will take 5 minutes (if that), the prep and the cleanup are all of the work. But they do a good job and it's clean. I don't trust rust-converters. The dents can be filled if they're not too deep and if there aren't high spots, but always try to work them as flat as you can before the filler goes on, that's just good form. They don't have to be perfect, but you can't fill in a high spot, and the thinner the filler, the better.
Small dents are a perfect spot for a stud gun, weld a stud in the middle. then apply a steady pull to it while tapping around the edges. finish with more outward pressure. Once you get the feel for it that works well and is quick.
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